E^.  1^  ^ 


.^0^^^^'^f'^m^ 


^OlCGUl  SEW'-^ 


5S 


The  Gift  of  Tongues 


Br 


D.  A.  HAYES, 

Pro/etsor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation  in  the  Graduate 
School  of  Theology,  Garrett  Biblical  Institute. 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 
NEW  YORK         CINCINNATI 


copteight,  1913,  by 
Jennings  and  Graham 


First  Edition  Printed  July,  19 1 3 
Reprinted  December,  1914 


TO 

($txtiU  (Htxticsi  ^nb  ^abth  (Opponents 

AN   OFFERING   OF   PEACE 


CONTENTS 

Foreword, 

PAGE 

7 

I. 

The  Gift  at  Corinth,     - 

11 

II. 

The  Gift  in  the  New  Tes- 

tament,   -        -        - 

19 

III. 

The  Gift  at  Pentecost, 

23 

IV. 

The  Gift  in  Later  Church 
History,  -        -        - 

63 

V. 

Reasons  Favoring  The 
Gift,         -        -        - 

94 

VI, 

Best    General    Attitude 
Toward  the  Gift,   - 

103 

VII. 

Four  Pauline  Principles 
OF    Control    of    the 
Gift,         .        -        - 

107 

VIII. 

Conclusion,        -        -        _ 

117 

FOREWORD 

This  book  runs  a  perfectly  straight 
course  through  the  New  Testament  and 
the  later  Church  history.  It  is  in  line 
with  both  present  and  past  experience. 
It  may  run  crosswise  to  the  opinions  and 
prejudices  of  some  people,  but  that  will 
only  prove  that  these  opinions  and  preju- 
dices are  not  themselves  in  line  with  the 
latest  psychological  research  and  the 
oldest  available  information.  It  surely  is 
a  recommendation  to  any  New  Testa- 
ment exegesis  that  it  finds  the  various 
authorities  consistent  with  each  other 
and  all  their  statements  substantiated 
in  present-day  occurrences.  Human  na- 
ture does  not  change  through  the  cen- 
turies. In  all  our  great  cities  and  in 
remote  rural  districts  there  are  revivals 
and  survivals  of  all  forms  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  community  experiences  of  the 

7 


FOREWORD 

primitive  days.  No  more  interesting 
phenomenon  of  that  sort  has  occurred 
in  our  generation  than  that  of  the  re- 
viyal  of  the  gift  of  tongues  in  connection 
with  rehgious  services. 

Many  good  people  have  been  puzzled 
by  it,  and  in  doubt  whether  it  were  of 
God  or  altogether  of  the  devil.  Many 
pastors  have  been  perplexed  as  to  how 
to  deal  with  individuals  affected  or  af- 
flicted with  the  gift  in  their  o^ti  congre- 
gations or  communities.  Such  people 
will  be  glad  to  know  something  of  the 
past  history  of  this  phenomenon,  and  to 
have  such  an  interpretation  of  the  New 
Testament  passages  concerning  it  as  will 
show  their  essential  hkeness  to  each 
other  and  their  essential  oneness  w4th  all 
the  repetitions  of  the  gift  in  the  later 
history.  This  discussion  is  intended  to 
be  thoroughly  sympathetic,  reasonable, 
and  irenic.  Some  very  good  people  have 
had  the  gift  of  tongues.  The  Apostle 
Paul  was  one  of  them.     Those  who  are 

8 


FOREWORD 

willing  to  shield  themselves  behind  his 
example  and  authority  in  the  use  of  the 
gift  ought  surely  to  be  willing  to  be  gov- 
erned by  the  Pauline  principles  of  con- 
trol laid  down  in  First  Corinthians  and 
set  forth  in  this  book. 

We  believe  that  it  would  be  a  great 
benefit  to  all  those  who  are  associated 
with  the  Tongues  Movement,  so-called, 
if  they  would  read  and  ponder  this  dis- 
cussion. However,  it  would  be  too  much 
to  hope  that  many  of  them  will  do  so. 
In  lieu  of  that,  the  book  may  be  helpful 
to  both  preachers  and  people  who  would 
like  to  have  some  light  upon  one  of  the 
most  interesting  problems  of  the  New 
Testament  and  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting phenomena  of  the  religious  reviv- 
als of  the  last  decade.  If  this  book  does 
not  contain  the  last  word  of  wisdom  on 
this  subject,  it  at  least  has  some  light 
to  throw  upon  it,  and  its  exegesis  is  as 
authoritative  as  any  other  that  can  be 
adduced  in  this  field.     There  is  no  final 

9 


FOREWORD 

authority  but  that  of  the  truth.  It  is 
in  the  hope  that  the  book  contains  noth- 
ing but  the  truth,  and  therefore  that  it 
will  be  to  the  honor  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  the  edification  of  the  general  Church 
that  we  send  it  out  with  the  prayer  that 
it  may  be  a  blessing  to  all  who  read  it. 


10 


The  Gift  of  Tongues 

>'A    >'A    >'A 
jTiN    ifA    iTiN 

Chapter  I 

IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  CORINTH 

Our  principal  source  of  information  con- 
cerning the  apostolic  gift  of  tongues  is 
the  fourteenth  chapter  of  the  First  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians.  Chapters  12,  13, 
and  14  form  a  distinct  section  of  this 
Epistle,  and  the  subject  is,  "Concerning 
Spiritual  Gifts."  In  chapter  12  Paul 
sets  forth  their  "Single  Source  and  their 
Unity  in  Diversity."  He  makes  a  list  of 
nine  varieties  of  spiritual  gifts,  and  he 
closes  that  list  with  "divers  kinds 
of  tongues  and  the  interpretation  of 
tongues"  (12:  10).  Toward  the  close  of 
the  chapter  he  makes  a  slightly  different 
list,  but  closes  as  before  with  "divers 
kinds    of   tongues"    (12:28).      Then   he 

11 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

asks,  *'Do  all  have  each  of  these?"  and 
his  interrogations  end,  "Do  all  speak 
with  tongues?  do  all  interpret?"  (12:  30). 
In  the  twelfth  chapter  we  have  no  expla- 
nation of  the  nature  of  this  gift  of  speak- 
ing with  tongues,  and  we  learn  only  that 
it  was  possessed  by  some,  not  all,  of  the 
members  of  the  Corinthian  Church.  Paul 
rates  it  among  the  spiritual  gifts,  but 
puts  it  at  the  end  of  the  list  as  the  least 
desirable  among  them. 

In  the  thirteenth  chapter  Paul  shows 
to  the  Corinthians  "the  superexcellent 
way,"  a  way  not  limited  to  a  favored 
few,  but  open  to  all — the  way  of  perfect 
love.  He  begins  that  chapter  by  saying, 
"If  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men 
and  of  angels,  but  have  not  love,  I  am 
become  sounding  brass"  (13:  1).  Further 
on  he  declares,  "Whether  there  be 
tongues,  they  shall  cease"  (13:8),  while 
love  never  fails.  Then  follows  the  four- 
teenth chapter,  which  is  mainly  devoted 
to   a   comparison    between   prophesying 

12 


IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  CORINTH 

and  speaking  with  tongues,  and  to  the 
proof  that  prophesying  is  the  more  de- 
sirable gift.  It  is  in  this  chapter  that 
we  get  some  clearer  conception  of  the 
nature  of  the  gift  of  tongues  itself.  We 
gather  the  following  facts  concerning  it: 

1.  It  is  a  gift  of  speech  which  is  di- 
rected not  to  men,  but  to  God  (14:2). 

2.  In  itself  it  does  not  edify  the 
general  Church.  Whatever  edification 
there  is  in  it  is  purely  individual  and 
personal  (14:  4). 

3.  It  is  an  unintelligible  succession  of 
sounds,  like  an  unknown  foreign  tongue, 
not  to  be  understood  without  inter- 
pretation (14:6-13).  1 

4.  The  gift  of  interpretation  is  dis- 
tinct from  the  gift  of  tongues,  and  it 
may  be  granted  to  the  same  individual 
who  has  the  gift  of  tongues  or  to  an- 
other (14:13,  27,  28). 

5.  It  is  an  energizing  by  the  spirit, 
and  is  independent  of  the  intellect  of 
man  (14: 14). 

13 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

6.  It  is  a  thanksgiving  and  a  bless- 
ing addressed  to  God  (14:  16,  17). 

7.  It  is  a  sign  to  the  unbeheving 
(14:22). 

8.  A  number  of  people  speaking  with 
tongues  at  one  and  the  same  time  will 
seem  to  the  unbeliever  to  be  maniacs 
(14:23). 

Chrysostom  said  of  this  whole  section 
of  the  First  Epistle  that  it  was  exceed- 
ingly obscure.  Chrysostom  had  never 
seen  any  instance  of  this  charism,  and  he 
felt  himself  very  much  in  the  dark  con- 
cerning it.  We  know  more  about  psy- 
chology than  Chrysostom  did,  and  we 
have  seen  the  gift  of  tongues  in  our  own 
community.  We  think,  therefore,  that 
these  chapters  are  not  so  obscure  to  us 
as  they  were  to  him. 

We  gather  from  the  facts  mentioned 
above  that  the  gift  of  tongues  at  Corinth 
was  not  the  gift  of  the  knowledge  or  use 
of  any  foreign  languages,  and  that  it 
was  not  exercised  for  any  missionary  or 

14 


IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  CORINTH 

apologetic  or  polemic  or  expository  or 
preaching  purposes.  It  was  used  in 
prayer  and  song 'and  thanksgiving,  not 
in  continuous  or  logical  discourse,  but  in 
ecstatic  ejaculation.  It  was  an  individ- 
ual experience  and^a  method  of  personal 
worship  and  adoration.  It  was  a  spir- 
itual rhapsody  of  vocal  expression  in 
terms  unintelligible  to  both  speaker  and 
hearer,  and  in  it  the  mind  of  the  subject 
was  inactive  and  the  conscience  of  the 
spectator  and  auditor  was  unmoved. 
An  unbeliever  might  be  struck  with  the 
strangeness  of  the  phenomenon,  and  he 
might  conceive  it  to  be  an  evidence  of  a 
divine  possession;  and  in  that  sense  it 
might  be  a  sign  to  him  and  lead  to  his 
conversion. 

We  must  remember  that  here  in  Cor- 
inth it  was  a  common  belief  that  the 
heathen  priests  and  priestesses  and  or- 
acles were  inspired  only  when  in  ecstatic 
states,  and  that  their  very  frenzies  were 
regarded  as  a  proof  of  their  divine  pos- 

15 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

session.  We  read  in  Plato's  Timseus, 
''God  has  given  the  art  of  divination  to 
the  foohshness  of  man.  For  no  man, 
when  in  his  senses,  attains  prophetic  truth 
and  inspiration;  but  when  he  receives 
the  inspired  word  either  his  intelhgence 
is  enthralled  by  sleep  or  he  is  demented 
by  some  distemper  or  possession. "^  In 
the  Ion  Socrates  classes  the  poets  with 
the  diviners  and  prophets,  and  declares 
that  their  inspiration  is  attained  in  the 
same  way.  ''The  poet  is  a  light  and 
winged  and  holy  thing,  and  there  is  no 
invention  in  him  until  he  has  been  in- 
spired and  is  out  of  his  senses,  and  the 
mind  is  no  longer  in  him:  when  he  has 
not  attained  to  this  state,  he  is  powerless 
and  is  unable  to  utter  his  oracles.  .  .  . 
God  takes  away  the  mind  of  poets  and 
uses  them  as  His  ministers,  as  He  also 
uses  diviners  and  holy  prophets,  in  order 
that  we  who  hear  them  may  know  that 

^"The  Dialogues  of  Plato"   (Jowett's  Translation),  Vol. 
II,  p.  563. 

16 


IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  CORINTH 

they  speak  not  of  themselves  who  utter 
these  priceless  words  in  a  state  of  un- 
consciousness, but  that  God  is  the 
speaker,  and  that  through  them  He  is 
conversing  with  us."^ 

This  was  the  current  conception  of 
the  method  and  evidence  of  inspiration 
in  Corinth.  It  was  not  strange,  there-  . 
fore,  that  in  the  Christian  Church  there  \ 
should  be  those  who  felt  themselves  filled 
and  thrilled  with  a  spiritual  exaltation 
which  they  were  sure  was  divine  in  its 
origin,  and  which  they  naturally  expected 
to  evidence  itself  in  the  same  ecstatic 
ejaculations  they  had  seen  in  the  heathen 
worshipers  in  their  similar  state.  Paul 
had  founded  Churches  in  other  Greek 
communities  and  throughout  the  Gentile 
world;  but  in  no  other  of  the  Pauline 
Churches  have  we  any  record  of  the 
occurrence  of  this  phenomenon.  It  was 
a  very  congenial  atmosphere  for  its 
exercise  in  Corinth,  and  it  may  not  have 

2  Op.  cit..  Vol.  I,  p.  224. 
2  17 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

appeared  among  the  Pauline  converts  in 
any  other  place. ^  However,  speaking 
with  tongues  is  mentioned  in  other  por- 
tions of  the  New  Testament,  and  it  may 
be  well  now  to  look  at  these  passages. 

^  We  note  that  Paul  came  in  contact  with  this  phenomenon 
at  Ephesus  (Acts  19: 1-6),  mentioned  in  the  fm-ther  dis- 
cussion. 


18 


Chapter  II 

OTHER  NEW  TESTAMENT  PAS- 
SAGES 

These  are  five  in  number: 

1.  In  Mark  16:  17  we  read  that  cer- 
tain signs  shall  accompany  them  that  be- 
Heve,  and  among  these  signs  shall  be  this, 
"They  shall  speak  with  new  tongues." 
Concerning  this  passage  we  need  to  say 
only  three  things: 

(1).  Some  of  the  most  ancient  texts, 
such  as  C,  L,  and  a,  omit  the  word 
**new,"  and  its  genuineness  therefore 
becomes  doubtful.  It  is  omitted  in  the 
text  of  Westcott  and  Hort,  and  is  noted 
as  questionable  in  the  margin  of  the 
Revised  Versions. 

(2).  The  whole  of  this  appendix  to 
the  Gospel  according  to  Mark,  16:9-20, 
is   of   doubtful    authenticity   and   is   re- 

19 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

garded  by  most  authorities  as  belonging 
to  the  sub-apostoHc  age. 

(3).  Nothing  definite  is  told  us  here 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  phenom- 
enon beyond  the  mere  mention  of  it  as 
a  sign.  For  these  reasons  we  leave  this 
passage  and  turn  to  others  of  better- 
attested  authenticity  and  more  definite 
information. 

2.  In  Acts  19:  1-6  we  read  that  Paul 
came  to  Ephesus  and  found  certain  dis- 
ciples of  John  the  Baptist  there  whom  he 
persuaded  to  become  Christians.  They 
were  baptized,  *'and  when  Paul  had 
laid  his  hands  upon  them,  the  Holy  Spirit 
came  on  them;  and  they  spake  with 
tongues,  and  prophesied." 

3.  In  Acts  10:46  we  are  told  that 
after  Peter  had  preached  to  the  house- 
hold of  Cornelius  the  Holy  Spirit  fell  on 
all  them  that  heard  the  word,  and  the 
Jewish  spectators  were  amazed,  **for  they 
heard  them  speak  with  tongues,  and 
magnify  God." 

20 


NEW  TESTAMENT  PASSAGES 

Is  there  anything  in  these  passages  to 
indicate  that  the  phenomenon  at  Ephesus 
or  at  Caesarea  was  in  any  wise  different 
from  that  at  Corinth?  We  think  not. 
At  Ephesus  the  gift  of  tongues  is  accom- 
panied with  the  gift  of  prophesying,  and 
we  remember  that  the  whole  of  the 
fourteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians 
is  given  to  a  comparison  between  these 
two  coincident  gifts  in  the  Corinthian 
Church.  At  Csesarea  we  are  told  that\ 
those  who  spoke  with  tongues  "magnified 
God,"  and  at  Corinth  we  saw  that  the 
tongues  were  used  in  blessing  and  thank- 
ing God.  In  the  absence  of  anything  that 
would  clearly  distinguish  them  in  the 
accounts  given,  we  conclude  that  they 
were  practically  the  same  phenomena  in 
these  three  places. 

4.  Peter  gave  an  account  of  his  doings 
in  Caesarea  before  the  brethren  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  in  describing  the  experiences 
of  the  Gentiles  he  said,  "As  I  began  to 
speak,  the  Holy  Spirit  fell  on  them,  just 

21 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

as  He  fell  upon  us  at  the  beginning" 
(Acts  11:  15);  and  again,  '*God  gave  unto 
them  the  like  gift  as  He  did  also  unto 
us,  when  we  believed  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ"  (Acts  11:17).  We  understand 
that  Peter  here  is  identifying  the  Pente- 
costal experience  with  the  experience  at 
Csesarea.  If,  as  we  have  concluded,  the 
experience  at  Csesarea  was  the  same  as 
that  at  Ephesus  and  at  Corinth,  and  if 
it  was  also,  as  Peter  suggests,  exactly 
the  same  as  that  in  Jerusalem  at  the 
first  Christian  Pentecost,  then  all  the 
occurrences  of  this  phenomenon  in  the 
New  Testament  have  to  do  with  one  and 
the  same  thing;  for  the  only  other  men- 
tion of  the  speaking  with  tongues  is 

5.  In  Acts  2:4-12,  where  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty  were  filled  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  began  to  speak  with 
other  tongues,  as  the  Spirit  gave  them 
utterance.  We  must  give  more  particular 
attention  to  this  passage. 


22 


Chapter  III 

THE  PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF 
TONGUES 

Did  the  phenomenon  at  Pentecost  differ 
from  that  at  Corinth,  and  what  was  the 
exact  nature  of  it?  We  will  endeavor  to 
answer  these  questions,  and  in  doing  so 
we  will  examine  some  of  the  conclusions 
reached  by  various  authorities. 

1.  The  most  absurd  exegesis  of  this 
passage  is  that  which  regards  the  tongues 
of  the  Pentecostal  experience  as  the 
literal  tongues  in  the  mouths  of  the  dis- 
ciples. Thayer  says,  "The  plural  in  the 
phrase  to  speak  with  tongues,  used  even 
of  a  single  person,  refers  to  the  various 
motions  of  the  tongue."^  Van  Hengel 
thinks  that  the  "other  tongues"  and  the 
"new  tongues"  with  which  the  disciples 

^Thayer,  "Lexicon  of  the  New  Testament,"  p.  118. 

23 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

spoke  were  their  own  tongues,  given  other 
and  new  power  by  the  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  They  had  been  tongues 
without  fire,  and  now  they  were  tongues 
of  fire.  Their  new  inspiration  had  made 
them  new  tongues.  They  were  new  men 
and  new  women,  and  they  spoke  with 
new  language  and  with  other  tongues 
than  they  had  known  before  this  wonder- 
ful spiritual  exaltation.  They  spoke  in 
Aramaic  and  they  used  their  own  tongues, 
but  their  unwonted  fluency  and  fervor, 
and  possibly  their  adoption  of  new  and 
strange  phraseology,  made  their  own 
tongues  seem  like  other  and  new  tongues 
to  them. 

The  trouble  with  this  suggestion  is  that 
the  tongues  of  verse  four  are  identified 
with  languages  in  verses  six  and  eight, 
and  that  the  tongues  spoken  by  the 
disciples  are  identified  with  the  tongues 
and  the  languages  spoken  by  the  spec- 
tators in  verses  eight  and  eleven.  These 
spectators  had  no  tongues  of  fire  and  no 

24 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

new  inspiration.  The  new  tongues  of 
the  disciples  were  old  tongues  to  them. 
The  tongues  of  verses  eight  and  eleven 
were  not  physical  tongues,  but  languages. 
2.  Ernesti,  Bleek,  and  Baur  have  la- 
bored with  great  learning  to  show  that 
"other  tongues"  may  be  interpreted  to 
mean  "strange  words  or  archaic,  poetic 
glosses."  These  glosses  were  not  in  use 
in  ordinary  language,  but  in  this  moment 
of  extraordinary  experience  they  seemed 
to  flow  naturally  to  the  lips,  and  being 
taken  from  many  dijfferent  dialects  and 
languages  they  were  in  reality  other  and 
new  tongues  to  those  who  found  them- 
selves using  them.  The  objection  to  this 
suggestion  is  that  it  gives  a  technical  and 
grammatical  meaning  to  the  word 
"tongue" — a  meaning  which  is  not  to 
be  found  anywhere  else  in  the  Old  or  the 
New  Testament,  and  which  Luke  would 
not  be  at  all  likely  to  use  in  this  con- 
nection, and  which  the  Parthians  and 
Medes   and   Elamites   surely   could   not 

25 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

have  used  in  any  case.  If  all  of  these 
foreigners  not  only  heard  the  disciples 
speaking  in  their  own  native  tongues, 
but  also  discovered  that  they  were  using 
archaic  and  obsolete  expressions  in  those 
t'  tongues,  we  have  a  miracle  unnecessarily 
heightened.  To  tell  the  wonderful  works 
of  God  in  foreign  languages  would  surely 
be  sufficient,  without  telling  them  in  an- 
tiquated and  strange  and  stilted  phrase- 
ology. One  would  think  that  the  preach- 
ing would  have  been  more  effective  in 
the  common  speech. 

3.  Herder  thought  that  the  Pente- 
costal tongues  were  simply  new  inter- 
pretations of  the  ancient  prophets,  new 
expositions  of  the  Scriptures.  The  old 
preachers  of  righteousness  seemed  to  be 
speaking  again  through  the  lips  of  these 
men,  and  the  Pentecostal  inspiration 
gave  to  the  old  writings  new  life.  The 
apostles  preached  with  new  and  strange 
power,  and  the  ancient  oracles  were 
transformed   in   their   speech.      To   this 

26 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

we  object  again  that  the  text  demands 
that  the  tongues  be  interpreted  to  mean^ 
languages  and  not  expositions. 

4.  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  suggested | 
the  possibihty  that  the  miracle  at  Pente-' 
cost  was  a  miracle  of  hearing  rather  than 
a  miracle  of  speaking.  The  disciples 
spoke  in  one  tongue,  but  their  hearers,  in 
their  excitement,  either  imagined  or  were 
sure  that  they  had  listened  to  the  won- 
derful works  of  God  narrated  in  their 
native  speech.  Gregory  decided  against 
this  hypothesis,  but  it  has  been  adopted 
by  the  Venerable  Bede,  Erasmus, 
Schneckenburger,  Svenson,  and  others. 
In  the  twelfth  century  Saint  Bernard 
preached  the  second  crusade  to  the 
Germans  in  Latin,  and  his  commanding 
presence  and  sweeping  eloquence  made  a 
greater  impression  upon  his  audiences 
than  his  speeches  ever  did  after  they 
were  translated  into  the  German  tongue. 
The  Germans  were  moved  by  them,  as 
If  in  their  own  tongues  they  were  hearing 

27 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

these  wonderful  appeals.  Could  it  be 
that  the  auditors  at  Pentecost  had  a 
similar  experience? 

Saint  Vincent  Ferrer  died  in  1419.  Of 
him  we  read,  '*Spondanus  and  many 
others  say  the  saint  was  honored  with 
the  gift  of  tongues,  and  that,  preaching  in 
his  own,  he  was  understood  by  men  of 
different  languages;  which  is  also  af- 
firmed by  Lanzano,  who  says  that  Greeks, 
Germans,  Sardes,  Hungarians,  and  peo- 
ple of  other  nations  declared  they  under- 
stood every  word  he  spoke,  though  he 
preached  in  Latin,  or  in  his  mother- 
tongue,  as  spoken  at  Valentia."^  The 
same  marvel  is  related  of  Saint  Anthony 
of  Padua  and  Saint  Francis  Xavier. 
Such  a  miracle  is  possible;  but  Beza 
long  ago  suggested  that  Luke  had  not 
made  use  of  that  perspicuity  and  in- 
tegrity of  language  which  the  Holy 
Spirit  would  sanction  if  this  was  what 
he  intended  to  say.     The  language  he 

^Alban  Butler,  "Lives  of  the  Saints,"  sub  April  5. 

28 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

uses  would  lead  us  to  conclude  that  the 
wonder  was  in  the  speaking  and  not  in 
the  hearing  upon  this  occasion. 

5.  Origen,  Gregory  of  Nazianzus, 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Chrysostom,  Au- 
gustine, Jerome,  and  most  of  the  Church 
fathers  believed  that  the  disciples  at 
Pentecost  were  miraculously  and  per- 
manently endowed  with  the  power  of 
using  foreign  languages  in  their  mission- 
ary work.  Chrysostom  thought  that 
each  of  the  disciples  was  given  the  knowl- 
edge of  one  particular  language — the  one 
he  would  need  for  evangelistic  work  in 
his  future  field  of  missionary  activity. 
Augustine,  however,  says,  "Every  one 
of  them  spoke  in  the  tongues  of  all  na- 
tions; thus  signifying  that  the  unity  of 
the  catholic  Church  would  embrace  all 
nations,  and  would  in  like  manner  speak  | 
in  all  tongues."^ 

Gregory    of    Nyssa    and    Gregory    of 
Nazianzus  connect  the  Pentecostal  gift 

3"De  Civ.  Dei.."  XVIII,  Chap.  49. 

29 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

/  of  tongues,  by  way  of  contrast,  with  the 
confusion  of  tongues  at  Babel.  The 
latter  said:  "As  the  old  confusion  of 
tongues  was  laudable,  when  men  who 
were  of  one  language  in  wickedness  and 
impiety,  even  as  some  now  venture  to 
be,  were  building  the  Tower;  for  by  the 
confusion  of  their  language  the  unity  of 
their  intention  was  broken  up,  and  their 
undertaking  destroyed;  so  much  more 
worthy  of  praise  is  the  present  miracu- 
lous one.  For  being  poured  from  One 
Spirit  upon  many  men,  it  brings  them 
again  into  harmony."^  Grotius  says, 
''The  confusion  of  tongues  scattered 
men;  the  gift  of  tongues  gathers  the 
scattered  peoples  into  one."  Schelling 
calls  the  Pentecostal  miracle  "Babel  re- 
versed." It  has  been  a  favorite  thought 
among  theologians  and  religious  writers 
everywhere. 

It  is  sufficient  to  say,  by  way  of  dis- 

^Orat.  XLI,  16,  "Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,"  Vol. 
VII,  p.  384. 

30 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

sent,  that  there  is  no  hint  of  this  con- 
trast in  the  New  Testament,  and  surely 
none  in  the  narrative  here.  The  en- 
dowment with  foreign  languages  at  this 
time,  though  generally  believed  in  by 
the  Church  fathers  and  many  of  the 
older  expositors,  has  been  abandoned  by 
modern  authorities.  Dean  Alford  and 
Bishop  Wordsworth  are  almost  alone  in 
maintaining  it.  Meyer  says,  ''The  sud- 
den communication  of  a  facility  of  speak- 
ing foreign  languages  is  neither  logically 
possible  nor  psychologically  and  morally 
conceivable."^  This  may  be  a  rather 
sweeping  judgment,  but  many  reasons 
may  be  given  for  rejecting  the  theory  on 
less  radical  but  equally  cogent  grounds. 
(1).  Those  who  heard  these  tongues 
are  said  to  have  been  ''Parthians  and 
Medes  and  Elamites,  and  the  dwellers  in 
Mesopotamia,  in  Judea  and  Cappadocia, 
in  Pontus  and  Asia,  in  Phrygia  and 
Pamphylia,  in  Egypt  and  the  parts  of 

^"Commentary  on  Acts,"  p.  18, 

31 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

Libya  about  Cyrene,  and  sojourners  from 
Rome,  both  Jews  and  proselytes,  Cretans 
and  Arabians."  It  is  noticeable  that  this 
is  a  list  of  countries  and  not  of  languages. 
If  the  crowd  consisted  of  Jews  and 
proselytes  come  up  from  these  various 
countries  to  the  Pentecostal  feast,  they 
would  not  represent  a  great  variety  of 
language.  Possibly  the  Greek  would  be 
understood  by  all  of  them.  Surely  the 
Greek  and  the  Aramaic  would  suffice  to 
represent  the  tongues  spoken  by  all. 
The  conquests  of  Alexander  had  spread 
the  Greek  tongue  throughout  the  whole 
extent  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
Judean  and  Arabian  Jews  spoke  the  West 
Aramaic;  and  the  Babylonian  Jews  spoke 
the  East  Aramaic.  There  were  dialectical 
differences,  of  course;  but  they  could  all 
have"  been  reached  with  one  language,  or, 
at  most,  two.  To  have  endowed  the  dis- 
ciples with  the  power  of  speaking  all 
languages  at  this  time  would  have  been 
superfluous    and    unnecessary,    and    our 

32 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

God  is  not  given  to  the  working  of  un- 
necessary miracles.  It  was  not  only  un- 
necessary at  that  time  and  place,  but  it 
was  unnecessary  in  any  of  the  later  min- 
istry of  the  disciples  recorded  in  our 
Scriptures.  In  all  the  lands  to  which  the 
gospel  spread  in  that  generation,  as  far 
as  we  have  the  record  of  it,  the  use  of 
Aramaic,  Greek,  and  Latin  would  have 
met  their  needs.  We  object  to  this 
theory  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  first,  be- 
cause it  entails  belief  in  what  the  Germans 
call  a  Luxus-Wunder — a  superfluous  and 
unnecessary  miracle. 

(2).  The  speaking  with  tongues  began  ^ 
before  the  crowd  came  together.  What 
reason  could  there  have  been  for  the 
speaking  in  foreign  languages  when  there 
was  no  one  present  to  hear  them  or  to 
understand  ? 

(3).    Peter,  in  the  Pentecostal  sermon: 

which  followed,   makes  no  reference  to! 

any  extraordinary  endowment  with  for-  | 

eign   tongues.     He   does   say   that   this  ! 

3  33 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

phenomenon  is  the  fulfillment  of  a  proph- 
ecy by  Joel,  but  in  that  prophecy  we  find 
nothing  about  such  an  endowment. 

(4).  The  whole  suggestion  rests  upon 
the  fallacious  supposition  that  the  gift 
of  tongues  was  a  preparation  for  the 
evangelization  of  the  foreign  nations. 
The  New  Testament  makes  no  such 
statement  concerning  it.  At  Corinth,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  tongues  were  used  in 
individual  worship  and  adoration,  and 
the  gospel  was  not  preached  to  anybody 
by  means  of  them.  Does  any  one  sup- 
pose that  the  disciples  of  the  Baptist  at 
Ephesus  or  Cornelius  and  his  household 
at  Csesarea,  upon  whom  the  gift  of 
tongues  came  just  as  it  did  upon  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty  at  Pentecost,  were 
thereby  commissioned  and  empowered  to 
become  missionaries  to  the  foreign  na- 
tions ?  There  is  no  hint  of  any  such 
thing  in  the  narrative. 

Then,  when  we  look  more  closely  at 
the  narrative  here  in  the  second  chapter 

34 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

of  the  Book  of  Acts,  we  find  that  those 
with  the  gift  of  tongues  simply  declared 
the  wonderful  works  of  God.  They  did 
not  preach.  Peter  did  the  preaching 
afterward,  and  in  one  tongue  which  was 
understood  by  all  the  people.  The  glos so- 
latia here  was  in  all  probability  just  what 
it  was  at  Corinth — a  succession  of  ecstatic 
ejaculations  jrom  souls  overflowing  with 
praise  and  adoration  to  God  for  all  His 
wonderjul  works  and  especial  personal 
blessings. 

The  effect  produced  upon  the  beholders 
is  evidently  the  same  here  as  at  Corinth. 
Some  are  impressed  and  others  are  mock- 
ing. Here  the  latter  said  that  these  men 
were  filled  with  new  wine.  At  Corinth 
they  declared  the  men  speaking  with 
tongues  were  insane.  A  drunken  man  and 
an  insane  man  are  alike  in  their  maudlin 
speech.  There  was  something  about 
this  manifestation  both  at  Pentecost  and 
at  Corinth  that  led  to  these  accusations. 
We  think  that  it  was  the  fact  that  the 

35 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

speech  was  incoherent  and  ejaculatory 
throughout.  There  may  have  been  an 
occasional  word  or  phrase  that  was  under- 
stood, but  for  the  most  part  it  was  a 
strange  and  bewildering  jargon,  more 
like  the  gibbering  of  a  maniac  or  the 
maundering  of  a  drunken  man  than 
anything  else  these  auditors  had  known 
in  their  experience.  An  orderly  discourse 
in  a  joreign  tongue,  understood  by  many 
who  were  present,  would  never  have  given 
any  occasion  jor  such  criticism.  Drunken 
men  and  maniacs  never  have  been  granted 
any  extraordinary  endowment  of  the  knowl- 
edge and  use  oj  joreign  tongues. 

(5).  Paul  spoke  with  tongues  more 
than  they  all,  but  we  have  no  record  of 
the  fact  that  he  knew  any  more  foreign 
languages  than  he  had  acquired  by  the 
regular  method  of  practice  and  study. 
Indeed,  in  the  narrative  in  the  fourteenth 
chapter  of  Acts  of  the  ministry  at  Lystra 
it  is  apparent  that  neither  Paul  nor 
Barnabas    knew    the    native    speech    of 

36 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

those  among  whom  they  were  laboring. 
Paul  worked  a  miracle  of  healing,  and 
the  people  said  in  the  speech  of  Lycaonia, 
"The  gods  have  come  down  to  us  in  the 
likeness  of  men,"  and  they  called  Barna- 
bas Zeus  and  Paul  Hermes.  Why  did 
not  Barnabas  and  Paul  renounce  these 
titles  and  remonstrate  with  the  multitude 
that  they  could  not  suffer  any  adoration 
of  themselves  ?  Evidently  because  they 
had  not  understood,  and  they  did  not 
know  what  was  going  on.  It  was  only 
when  the  priest  of  the  idol  temple  came 
with  oxen  and  garlands  to  offer  sacrifices 
to  them  that  Barnabas  and  Paul  began 
to  understand  what  all  of  this  meant, 
and  then  they  rent  their  garments  and 
sprang  forth,  saying,  "We  also  are  men 
of  like  passions  with  you"  (Acts  14:8- 
15).  It  was  rather  late  in  the  day  to  do 
that,  if  they  had  understood  from  the 
beginning  what  the  people  were  saying 
and  planning.  Evidently  they  had  not 
understood.    Their  adequate  excuse  was 

37 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

that  in  the  very  first  moment  that  the 
procedure  of  the  people,  not  their  speech, 
had  made  their  designs  manifest,  they 
hastened  to  repudiate  all  idolatrous  wor- 
ship directed  to  themselves.  If  they  had 
known  the  speech  they  would  have  put 
a  stop  to  these  things  long  before. 

(6).    Very  early  and  seemingly  reliable 

I  Church  tradition  tells  us  that  Mark  ac- 
companied Peter  as  his  interpreter.  If 
the  gift  of  tongues  Peter  had  received  at 
Pentecost  had  given  him  the  power  to 
speak  in  foreign  languages,  he  would  not 
have  needed  any  interpreter. 

(7).    All  of  the  Early  Church  literature 

'  is  in  one  tongue — the  Greek.  Epistles 
written  at  Jerusalem  are  written  in 
Greek.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is 
written  in  Greek.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  is  written  in  Greek.  The  Epistle 
to  the  Gauls  is  written  in  Greek.  Surely, 
if  the  apostles  were  all  gifted  with  the 
fluent  use  of  foreign  tongues,  some  of 
the   writing   of   the   first   two   centuries 

38 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

would  have  appeared  in  some  one  of  these 
other  tongues.  Since  Greek  was  suf- 
ficient for  all  of  the  writing,  it  could 
have  sufficed  for  all  of  the  preaching,  too. 

(8).  The  Greek  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  not  the  purest  Greek  of  the  age. 
The  writers  of  the  various  books  differ 
largely  among  themselves  in  their  com- 
mand of  the  Greek  vocabulary  and 
grammar.  Some  indulge  in  provincial- 
isms and  barbarisms.  If  their  knowledge 
of  Greek  had  been  given  them  by  super-  \ 
natural  endowment,  we  surely  might  ex- 
pect their  Greek  to  be  correct  Greek. 
That  it  is  not  so  in  all  cases  goes  to  prove 
that  it  is  not  miraculous  in  its  origin. 
The  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  bears 
every  evidence  that  it  has  been  acquired 
by  human  effort,  and  that  it  is  subject 
to  all  the  defects  of  a  tongue  used  by 
those  who  have  not  been  masters  of  it 
from  earliest  life. 

(9).    The  New  Testament  has  no  trace 
of  the  use  of  tongues  miraculously  ob- 

39 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

tained  in  the  missionary  work  after  Pen- 
tecost, and  none  of  the  missionary  work 
in  the  later  ages  of  Church  history  has 
been  carried  on  by  such  means. 

(10).  It  is  contrary  to  all  precedent 
and  to  all  our  knowledge  of  the  ways  of 
God  with  men  to  believe  that  He  would 
give  men  any  command  of  languages  by 
miraculous  means  when  they  could  be 
acquired  by  the  use  of  faculties  and  op- 
portunities already  at  hand.  Our  God 
has  never  put  any  premium  upon  lazi- 
ness. He  does  not  grant  scientific  or 
practical  knowledge  in  answer  to  prayer 
or  in  independence  of  all  personal  labor. 
Spiritual  gifts  are  bestowed  out  of  hand. 
Knowledge  of  sciences  and  languages 
comes  as  the  result  of  individual  effort 
to  obtain  them. 

6.  Olshausen,  Baumgarten,  Thiersch, 
Lechler,  Hackett,  Gloag,  Plumptre,  and 
Schaff  do  not  believe  in  the  permanent 
endowment  with  the  knowledge  of  foreign 
tongues  at  this  time,  but  they  do  believe 

40 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

that  a  temporary  supernatural  endow- 
ment of  this  sort  was  enjoyed  by  the 
disciples  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  and 
that  it  passed  away  with  the  visible 
tongues  of  flame.  We  are  ready  to  agree 
that  the  Pentecostal  experience  was  an 
altogether  unique  and  extraordinary  one, 
and  that  at  that  creative  moment  any 
exceptional  miracle  might  be  natural 
enough.  We  believe  such  a  wonder  to  be 
possible  with  God  and  with  man.  We 
have  no  objection  to  its  extraordinary 
features.  It  is  simply  a  question  of  New 
Testament  exegesis  and  of  the  experience 
of  Church  history  with  us.  We  believe 
that  the  narrative  in  the  second  chapter 
of  the  Book  of  Acts  must  be  interpreted 
to  mean  that  those  from  distant  lands 
and  acquainted  with  other  and  foreign 
tongues  heard  the  disciples  speaking  in 
those  tongues  ejaculations  of  praise  and 
adoration  which  they  recognized  as  be- 
longing to  their  own  speech,  and  not  to 
the   native    tongue    of   these    Galileans. 

41 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

However,  this  seems  to  us  to  fall  far 
short  of  even  a  temporary  endowment 
of  the  mastery  of  these  several  tongues. 
Such  a  miracle  would  be  even  greater 
than  a  permanent  endowment,  and  would 
be  unnecessary  and  unparalleled.  We 
are  inclined  to  think  that  the  experience 
at  Pentecost  was  essentially  like  that  at 
Csesarea  and  at  Ephesus  and  at  Corinth, 
and  that  it  has  been  reproduced  more  than 
once  in  later  history.  It  might  have 
been  unique,  but  we  see  no  compelling 
reason  to  believe  it  so. 

7.    There  is  a  drastic  method  of  pro- 
cedure with  the  whole  narrative  of  the 
gift  of  tongues  at  Pentecost  which  we 
may  as  well  mention  before  giving  our 
own  conclusions  in  the  matter.     Radical 
[critics  avoid  all  further  trouble  with  this 
I  phenomenon  by  saying  that  the  account 
■  by  Luke  is  unhistorical.     Schmiedel,  in 
his  article  in  the  Encyclopedia  Biblica, 
may  serve  as  a  good  example  of  these. 
He  says,  "The  student  who  is  not  pre- 

42 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

pared  to  give  up  the  genuineness  of  the 
principal  PauHne  epistles  is  in  duty 
stringently  bound  to  consider  the  account 
of  Paul  as  the  primary  one,  and  discuss  it 
without  even  a  side  glance  at  Acts,  and  to 
reject  as  unhistorical  everything  in  Acts 
which  does  not  agree  with  this  account."^ 
Schmiedel  very  definitely  does  this.  We 
hope  to  show  that  there  may  be  no 
essential  difference  between  Paul  and 
Luke  in  their  accounts  of  the  gift  of 
tongues,  and  that,  therefore,  it  is  not  at 
all  necessary  to  throw  aside  either  one 
of  them. 

Zeller,  in  his  work  on  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  after  a  long  discussion  of  the 
subject,  comes  to  the  following  con- 
clusion: "For  our  immediate  object  we 
restrict  ourselves  to  the  question  from 
which  we  started — w^hether,  as  far  as 
the  existing  indications  can  be  followed, 
the  narrative  before  us  was  based  on 
any  definite  fact.     After  what  has  been 

6  Encyclopedia  Biblica,  Vol.  IV,  Col.  4761. 

43 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

said,  we  can  only  reply  in  the  negative. 
The  demonstrably  unhistorical  elements 
of  this  narrative,  as  we  have  seen,  con- 
cern not  only  its  outworks  or  single  sub- 
ordinate features,  but  its  real  nucleus 
and  focus;  nay,  the  entire  groundwork 
on  which  it  moves  is  highly  uncertain, 
and,  according  to  all  appearance,  there 
seems  to  be  no  scope  for  any  fact  which 
could  serve  to  explain  it.  Neither  do  we 
require  any  such  fact  to  render  its 
origin  credible,  as  it  is  in  all  respects 
perfectly  explicable  by  dogmatic  motives 
and  typical  points  of  view."^  Meyer, 
having  dogmatically  decided  that  the 
miracle  is  "neither  logically  possible  nor 
psychologically  and  morally  conceivable," 
must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  "the 
event,  as  Luke  narrates  it,  can  not  be 
presented  in  the  actual  form  of  its  his- 
torical occurrence."^ 

Professor    Ramsay    says:     "In    Acts 

7  Zeller,  "The  Acts  of  the  Apostles."  Vol.  I,  p.  206. 

8  Oy.  cit.,  p.  48. 

44 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

2:5-11  another  popular  tale  seems  to 
obtrude  itself.  In  these  verses  the  power 
of  speaking  with  tongues  ...  is 
taken  in  the  sense  of  speaking  in  many 
languages.  Here  again  we  observe  the 
distorting  influence  of  popular  fancy. "^ 
Doctor  Bartlet  says  that  '*the  orig- 
inal facts  of  Pentecost  were  quite  akin 
to  the  known  analogies  of  glossolalia,  but 
gradually  took  on  another  and  more 
unique  color  in  the  tradition  as  it  reached 
the  author  of  Acts.  In  the  course  of 
tradition  the  idea  would  arise  that  the 
Divine  voice,  speaking  through  these 
inspired  tongues,  assumed  the  forms  of 
the  languages  of  mankind. "^^^  These  all 
amount  to  the  same  thing.  The  account 
by  Luke  is  not  to  be  trusted.  It  rests 
upon  baseless  tradition  or  popular  fancy 
or  dogmatic  motives.  It  is  not  histor- 
ically accurate,  and  therefore  may  be 
summarily  set  aside. 

9  Ramsay,  "St.  Paul  the  Traveller,"  p.  370. 

10 The  New  Century  Bible  "Acts  of  the  Apostles,"  Note 
C,  p.  385.  ^^ 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

We  are  not  ready  to  agree  with  this 
conclusion.  The  day  of  Pentecost  was 
the  great  and  notable  day  of  the  found- 
ing of  the  Christian  Church.  The  inci- 
dents of  that  day  were  among  the  most 
important  which  Luke  had  to  record  in 
this  second  volume  of  his  historical  work. 
If  he  can  not  be  trusted  in  his  account  of 
these  things,  I,  for  one,  see  no  reason 
for  trusting  him  anywhere.  Ramsay  has 
shown  in  passage  after  passage  that 
Luke  was  absolutely  accurate  in  his  state- 
ment of  facts.  Yet  at  this  point  he 
thinks  that  Luke  was  dependent  upon 
popular  fancy !  Surely  Luke  was  less 
/likely  to  go  astray  in  his  history  oj  this 
most  remarkable  event  he  has  to  record 
than  in  any  of  the  minor  details  of  his 
book,  which  Ramsay  has  labored  so  long 
and  so  hard  to  substantiate.  He  was  the 
companion  of  Paul,  who  "spoke  with 
tongues  more  than  they  all."  He  doubt- 
less had  seen  the  glossolalia  at  Corinth, 
or  if  he  had  not  seen  it  he  had  heard  all 

46 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

about  it  from  Paul.  He  knew  what  this 
phenomenon  was  Hke.  He  wrote  this 
account  when  scores  of  those  who  were 
present  at  Pentecost  were  still  living. 
Any  inaccuracy  in  his  statement  would 
have  been  challenged  at  once. 

A  careful  historian,  such  as  Ramsay 
has  proven  Luke  to  be,  would  not  be 
mistaken  in  his  narrative  of  one  of  the 
most  important  events,  if  not  the  most 
important  event,  in  his  book.  To  main- 
tain this  destructive  position  of  the 
critics  with  any  plausibility  at  all,  Luke's 
authorship  of  the  Book  of  Acts  must 
be  given  up  and  the  composition  of  the 
book  must  be  carried  down  into  the 
second  century,  when  all  eye-witnesses 
were  dead  and  popular  fancies  had  had 
time  to  supplant  and  replace  the  knowl- 
edge of  actual  facts.  We  can  not  find 
any  good  reason  for  such  radical  con- 
clusions. On  the  other  hand,  we  are 
assured  of  Luke's  authorship,  and  that 
carries  with  it  an  assurance  of  Luke's 

47 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

accuracy.  We  are  ready  to  accept  the 
narrative  of  the  gift  of  tongues  at  Pente- 
cost as  a  truthful  and  historical  one,  and 
then  we  are  ready  to  interpret  it  as  well 
as  we  may  in  accordance  with  the  same 
gift  in  other  places  and  in  later  Church 
history. 

8.  The  glossolalia  at  Pentecost  was 
/  essentially  that  experienced  at  Corinth 
and  Ephesus  and  Csesarea,  and  it  has 
been  repeated  again  and  again  in  Church 
history.  Its  one  remarkable  feature  seems 
to  have  been  the  use  of  words  and 
phrases  in  foreign  tongues.  We  do  not 
believe  that  this  is  an  altogether  peculiar 
feature.  Probably  at  Corinth  it  was  in 
the  midst  of  the  ecstatic  ejaculations  of 
the  glossolalia  that  some  had  been  heard 
to  say,  "Jesus  anathema!"  and  Paul 
writes  in  the  First  Epistle,  ''I  make 
known  unto  you,  that  no  man  speaking 
in  the  Spirit  of  God  saith,  Jesus  is 
anathema"  (1  Cor.  12:3).  That  phrase, 
Jesus  anathema,  would  be  a  foreign  phrase 

48 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

at  Corinth;  and  we  can  readily  believe 
that  some  one  in  the  ecstatic  condition 
of  the  glossolalia  had  been  heard  to  re- 
peat this  phrase  again  and  again. 

At  Los  Angeles  not  long  ago  a  woman 
had  the  gift  of  tongues,  and  a  reputable 
Chinaman  who  heard  her  said  that  she 
was  speaking  his  dialect  of  Chinese. 
When  he  was  asked  to  interpret  what 
she  had  said,  he  refused  to  do  it,  saying 
that  the  language  was  the  vilest  of  the 
vile.^i  How  did  this  Christian  woman  in 
a  religious  service  happen  to  have  such 
words  upon  her  lips?  She  did  not  under- 
stand them.  She  did  not  know  what  she 
was  saying.  She  was  not  conscious  that 
she  was  speaking  in  Chinese.  What  was 
the  explanation?  Doubtless  in  Los  An- 
geles she  had  heard  these  words  and 
phrases  from  some  Chinese — the  cook  in 
her  own  kitchen,  it  may  be,  or  the 
laundryman,  or  the  coolies  in  the  orchard 
or  upon  the  street.     She  had  not  under- 

"Schofield,  "Christian  Sanity,"  p.  97. 

4  49 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

stood  them.  She  had  not  consciously 
remembered  them.  But  in  the  exalted 
and  ecstatic  state  these  words  and  phrases 
came  out  of  her  subconscious  memory 
and  ran  from  her  tongue  along  with 
other  ecstatic  ejaculations  equally  unin- 
telligible to  her. 

That  would  explain  what  had  hap- 
pened at  Corinth.  No  Christian  in  his 
conscious  and  intelligent  speech  would 
say  that  Jesus  was  anathema  or  accursed. 
In  the  glossolalia  some  had  been  heard 
to  say  it.  They  had  heard  the  phrase  on 
the  streets  of  Corinth.  There  were  many 
blasphemers  there,  and  any  forcible 
phrase  uttered  in  passing  would  remain 
in  the  memory  and  be  apt  to  reappe^ar 
in  their  ecstatic  condition.  Paul  repudi- 
ated all  suggestion  of  responsibility  on 
the  part  of  the  Spirit  of  God  for  such 
expressions,  even  if  they  occurred  with 
other  pious  ones  in  the  speech  of  the 
people  who  were  speaking  with  tongues. 
The  devil  might  take  advantage  of  one 

50 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

in  that  experience  and  make  use  of  the 
tongue,  over  which  the  understanding 
had  no  control,  just  as  easily  as  the 
Spirit  of  God.  By  their  utterances  let 
them  be  judged;  and  if  no  one  could 
interpret  their  utterances,  then  by  their 
results  upon  the  individual  experience 
and  life. 

Now,  it  is  along  this  line  that  I  would 
find  the  explanation  of  the  experience  at 
Pentecost;  only  it  was  graciously  granted 
that  in  that  first  glossolalia  nothing  was 
said  that  would  mar  the  harmony  of  the 
speech  with  the  spiritual  possession  and 
religious  exaltation  enjoyed  by  all.  The 
reason  for  this  is  easily  apparent,  too. 
The  Jews  and  Proselytes  were  gathered 
from  the  many  lands  to  worship  their 
God  in  Jerusalem.  On  all  the  streets  at 
this  feast,  and  on  many  other  previous 
ones,  the  Galilean  disciples  had  heard 
their  pious  ejaculations.  They  had  not 
noted  them  at  the  time.  They  could  not 
have  repeated  them  at  any  time,  if  they 

51 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

had  been  asked  to  do  so.  They  were 
simply  foreign  tongues  to  them,  but 
spoken  by  pious  people  and  at  the  time 
of  the  great  national  religious  celebra- 
tion— phrases  and  sentences  of  praise  and 
prayer  setting  forth  the  wonderful  works 
of  God.  At  Pentecost  there  was  a  most 
extraordinary  spiritual  baptism.  It  swept 
the  hundred  and  twenty  into  an  ecstatic 
condition.  Their  tongues  were  loosened 
and  they  had  fluency  of  expression  for 
all  of  their  spiritual  joy;  but,  to  the 
amazement  of  all  who  heard,  they  were 
not  speaking  in  their  Galilean  dialect, 
but  they  were  pouring  forth  a  flood  of 
strange  and  unintelligible  sounds. 

It  was  a  new^  speech  for  a  new  expe- 
rience, ushering  in  the  new  time.  Some 
mocked  and  said  that  they  were  drunken. 
Others  listened  more  carefully,  and,  to 
their  still  greater  astonishment,  they 
heard  now  and  then  words  and  phrases 
these  Galileans  had  never  used  in  their 
own  speech  before — words  and  phrases 

52 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

which  they  recognized  as  belonging  to 
their  foreign  tongues,  ejaculations  of 
adoration  and  praise  which  belonged  to 
languages  spoken  in  the  Far  East  or  the 
North  or  the  South  or  the  West.  Par- 
thians,  Medes,  Elamites,  the  dwellers  in 
Mesopotamia,  in  Phrygia,  in  Egypt,  so- 
journers from  Rome,  Cretans,  and  Arabi- 
ans all  heard  them  speaking  in  their  own 
languages  in  which  they  were  born  the 
mighty  works  of  God.  It  was  something 
new  in  Jewish  history.  One  who  wit- 
nessed it  never  would  have  forgotten  it. 
They  were  not  psychologists.  They 
would  not  have  looked  for  any  scientific 
explanation  of  this  phenomenon.  They 
listened  and  heard  that  all  the  words 
and  phrases  and  sentences  which  they 
could  understand  were  religious  in  char- 
acter and  spoken  to  the  praise  of  God; 
and  they  said,  "It  is  the  Spirit  who 
gives  them  utterance."  They  were  right. 
This  was  a  spiritual  exaltation,  given 
after  days  of  prayer.     The  new  gift  of 

53 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

tongues  was  to  those  disciples  a  method 
of  spiritual  expression,  a  charism  ac- 
companying the  other  manifestations  of 
the  Spirit's  presence  and  power. 

With  this  understanding  of  the  phe- 
nomenon, I  see  no  reason  why  it  may 
not  have  been  possible  and  probable  and 
actual.  There  was  no  endowment  with 
the  permanent  knowledge  of  all  or  of  any 
foreign  languages.  There  was  no  tempo- 
rary endowment  with  the  knowledge  of 
those  languages  as  a  whole.  Under  the 
stress  of  their  great  spiritual  emotion 
the  disciples  were  lifted  out  of  their 
ordinary  selves,  and  in  their  ecstasy  they 
spoke  with  tongues,  and  in  the  flow  of 
their  expression  there  came  up  from  the 
depths  of  their  memories  the  phrases 
and  sentences  they  had  heard  from  the 
Jews  and  proselytes  assembled  in  Jerusa- 
lem— unintelligible  to  them,  and  uttered 
unconsciously  now,  but  all  in  the  expres- 
sion of  their  own  spiritual  state.  They 
had    lost    the    normal    control    of    their 

54 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

tongues  and  their  memories  were  ab- 
normally quickened,  and  the  result  for 
this  brief  period  of  ecstatic  utterance 
was  that  narrated  by  Luke. 

Luke  does  not  say  that  the  most  of 
this  speaking  with  tongues  was  in  the 
same  unintelligible  jargon  heard  at  Cor- 
inth and  Ephesus  and  Csesarea.  He  did 
not  need  to  say  it.  Everybody  in  the 
Early  Church  knew  the  usual  features  of 
this  phenomenon.  Luke  naturally  enough 
fastens  upon  the  one  thing  that  marked 
the  Pentecostal  experience  as  especially 
noteworthy,  namely,  the  occurrence  in 
the  flow  of  the  glossolalia  of  expressions 
in  all  the  foreign  languages  represented 
in  the  company  at  the  Jerusalem  feast, 
expressions  which  could  be  understood  by 
various  hearers  and  which  were  of  such 
a  character  as  to  convince  these  hearers 
that  the  whole  experience  v/as  indeed  a 
manifestation  from  the  Spirit  of  God. 
That  it  was  not  of  man  would  be  ap- 
parent to  them  in  the  fact  that  when 

55 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

the  disciples  had  recovered  from  their 
ecstasy,  and  had  returned  to  their  nor- 
mal condition,  they  could  neither  re- 
member nor  repeat  the  foreign  languages 
they  had  so  fluently  used  a  few  moments 
before.  The  foreign  languages  spoken  at 
Pentecost  are  explicable  to  us  as  due  to 
abnormally  quickened  memories,  reproduc- 
ing to  these  Jews  and  proselytes  phrases 
and  sentences  heard  from  them,  and  ail- 
unconsciously  stored  in  minds  that  had 
no  use  of  them  in  normal  conditions.  The 
gift  of  tongues  is  explicable  here  as  every- 
where else,  as  one  form  of  ecstatic  expres- 
sion, possible  at  any  time  of  great  spiritual 
uplift,  and  repeated  again  and  again  in 
the  history  of  the  Church, 

That  the  possibility  of  this  rational 
explanation  of  the  psychological  phenom- 
enon at  Pentecost  may  be  more  clear,  we 
quote  from  Noah  Porter's  "Elements  of 
Intellectual  Science."  He  says:  "It  is 
questioned  by  many  whether  absolute 
forgetf ulness    is    possible  —  whether,    at 

5Q 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

least,  we  are  authorized  to  affirm  that 
the  soul  can  lose  beyond  recovery  any- 
thing which  it  has  known.  It  is  certain 
that  knowledge  which  has  remained  out 
of  sight  for  a  long  period  has  often  been 
suddenly  recovered.  Even  acquisitions 
which  were  the  least  likely  to  be  remem- 
bered, and  which,  previously,  were  never 
known  or  suspected  to  have  been  made, 
come  up  as  though  the  soul  were  inspired 
to  receive  strange  revelations  of  its 
capacities  and  acquirements. "^^  The  dis- 
ciples may  have  overheard  these  foreign 
phrases  and  sentences  without  having 
paid  any  especial  attention  to  them  and 
without  being  aware  that  they  had  been 
retained  in  memory.  Indeed,  they  might 
have  been  assured  that  they  had  not 
been  so  retained,  since  they  found  them- 
selves utterly  unable  to  repeat  them 
afterward.  Yet  it  would  have  been 
perfectly  possible  for  them  to  have 
used    them    fluently    when    under    the 

^2  Porter,  "Elements  of  Intellectual  Science,"  p.  264. 

57 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

excitement   and   the   exaltation   of  Pen- 
tecost. 

Porter  goes  on  to  instance  the  well- 
known  story  told  by  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge  in  his  "Biographia  Literaria" 
of  the  servant-girl  who  could  neither  read 
nor  write,  but  when  seized  with  a  nervous 
fever,  in  her  delirium  talked  continuously 
in  Latin  and  Greek  and  Hebrew  in 
pompous  tones  and  with  most  distinct 
enunciation.  Sheets  of  her  ravings  were 
taken  down  from  her  mouth,  and  she 
was  found  to  be  reciting  long  passages 
from  classical  and  rabbinical  writers. 
All  who  heard  her  were  astonished,  and 
many  were  disposed  to  believe  that  she 
was  possessed  by  a  good  or  an  evil  spirit. 
Inquiries  were  made  into  the  history  of 
her  life,  and  it  was  learned  that,  several 
years  before,  she  had  been  a  servant  in 
the  family  of  an  old  and  learned  Prot- 
estant pastor  in  the  country,  and  that 
pastor  had  been  in  the  habit  of  walking 
up   and   down   a  passage   of  the   house 

58 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

adjoining  the  kitchen  and  reading  aloud 
to  himself  favorite  portions  from  the 
very  volumes  from  which  the  delirious 
girl  was  found  to  be  quoting.  She  had 
heard  them  through  the  partition.  They 
were  utterly  unintelligible  to  her,  but 
these  strange  sounds  had  ail-uncon- 
sciously impressed  themselves  upon  her 
memory,  and  in  the  mental  and  nervous 
excitement  of  her  delirium  she  was  able 
so  strangely  to  recall  them  and  utter 
them.  Under  extraordinary  mental  stim- 
ulus such  lingual  recollections  and  repro- 
ductions are  possible.  '*Rev.  Timothy 
Flint,  in  his  'Recollections,'  records  of 
himself  that,  when  prostrated  by  malarial 
fever,  he  repeated  aloud  long  passages 
from  Virgil  and  Homer  which  he  had 
never  formally  committed  to  memory, 
and  of  which,  both  before  and  after  his 
illness,  he  could  repeat  scarcely  a  line."^^ 
There  was  no  fever  at  Pentecost,  but 
there  was  abnormal  mental  and  nervous 

^^  Porter,  op.  cit.,  p.  265. 

59 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

exaltation.  These  illustrations  are  taken 
from  the  older  psychology,  but  now  that 
the  new  researches  into  the  unsuspected 
reserves  of  power  in  the  depths  of  the 
subliminal  consciousness  have  come  into 
vogue,  all  we  have  suggested  at  this 
point  is  only  reinforced  and  established. 
This,  then,  is  our  understanding  of  the 
phenomenon  at  Pentecost.  There  was  a 
real  speaking  of  foreign  languages  there. 
That  was  not  the  whole  of  the  gift  of 
tongues,  and  we  are  not  disposed  to 
think  that  it  played  any  considerable 
part  in  the  total  phenomenon.  The 
phrases  and  sentences  from  the  foreign 
languages  were  in  all  probability  only 
the  flotsam  and  jetsam  on  the  general  cur- 
rent oj  speech.  They  came  to  the  surface 
occasionally,  and  they  were  doubtless 
repeated  again  and  again.  The  most  of 
the  speaking  was  unintelligible,  and  Luke 
has  passed  it  by  in  his  account,  for  it 
was  just  like  the  glossolaha  with  which 

60 


PENTECOSTAL  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

the  Early  Church  had  become  acquainted 
in  other  places.  But  these  foreign 
phrases,  spoken  by  Galileans  who  were 
not  linguists  and  clearly  understood  by 
the  foreigners  of  many  nations,  were  the 
remarkable  feature  of  the  phenomenon 
at  Pentecost;  and  it  is  this  remarkable 
feature  which  Luke  has  taken  care  to 
record.  These  foreign  sentences  were 
not  natural  to  the  Galilean  disciples  and 
were  not  remembered  by  them  afterward. 
The  use  of  them  is  explicable  by  the 
powers  proven  to  belong  to  the  sub- 
liminal consciousness  and  the  abnormally- 
quickened  memory.  All  the  phrases  they 
repeated  they  must  have  heard  before 
at  some  time  or  another,  though  they 
themselves  may  not  have  been  conscious 
of  that  fact.  The  same  phenomenon  is 
frequent  in  later  Church  history,  and  is 
common  enough  to-day.  ^^ 

"  For  a  somewhat  similar  conclusion,  see  '*  The  American 
Journal  of  Theology,"  Vol.  XIII,  p.  206. 

61 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

We  turn  now  to  an  enumeration  of 
some  of  the  periods  and  places  in  Church 
history  in  which  the  gift  of  tongues  has 
been  manifest.  There  have  been  many 
of  them,  and  we  simply  make  a  choice 
among  the  instances  which  are  best 
known. 


G2 


Chapter  IV 

LATER  INSTANCES  OF  THE  GIFT 
OF  TONGUES 

1.  The  Montanists  represented  a  re- 
action in  the  Church  against  the  growing 
ecclesiasticism  and  the  dependence  upon 
forms  instead  of  the  spiritual  power  of 
the  primitive  times.  It  was  a  protest 
against  the  domination  of  a  hierarchy  in 
favor  of  individual  liberty  and  per- 
sonal inspiration  which  the  Montanists 
preached,  and  they  strove  to  come  into 
direct  communion  with  the  divine.  Great 
revivals  marked  their  efforts  in  the  East 
and  the  West.  In  these  revivals  trances, 
prophecies,  and  tongues  were  frequent 
phenomena.  It  may  have  been  with 
some  reference  to  these  that  Irenseus 
says  that  certain  men  in  his  day  spoke 
with  all  kinds  of  tongues.     At  the  close 

63 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

of  the  second  century  the  gift  of  tongues 
yvvas  still  in  the  possession  of  the  Church. 
Montanism  was  crushed  out  by  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  not  until 
Martin  Luther's  time  did  Protestantism 
become  again  a  serious  menace  to  the 
integrity  of  the  organized  Church, 

2.  In  1685  the  revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes  took  place,  and  a  rigorous 
persecution  of  the  Huguenots  began  at 
once.  Churches  were  destroyed,  minis- 
ters were  banished,  meetings  were  for- 
bidden, schools  were  suppressed.  Bibles 
and  religious  books  were  burned,  men 
were  tortured  and  hung  or  sent  to  the 
prisons  or  the  galleys  for  life,  and  women 
suffered  w^orse  than  death.  It  was  at 
this  time  that  the  Church  of  the  Desert 
came  into  being.  The  Camisards  or 
peasants  of  the  Cevennes  organized  mili- 
tary forces.  Cavalier,  the  baker's  boy, 
only  seventeen  years  old,  defeated  the 
Count  de  Broglie  and  three  of  the  mar- 
shals   of    France,    and    the    Protestants 

64 


LATER  INSTANCES 

finally  forced  an  honorable  peace.  They 
were  granted  Hberty  of  conscience  and  the 
right  of  assembly,  the  liberation  of  their 
friends  in  the  prisons  and  the  galleys, 
and  the  restitution  of  their  property  and 
civil  rights.  There  never  had  been  a 
more  desperate  situation.  There  never 
was  a  more  glorious  deliverance. 

During  all  this  period  of  distress  and 
warfare  the  Camisards  lived  in  the  con- 
stant experience  of  the  supernatural. 
They  had  visions  and  trances  and  in- 
spired prophecies.  The  discipline  of  the 
army  was  maintained  by  a  prophetess. 
Supernatural  lights  guided  them  to  places 
of  safety,  divine  voices  sang  encourage- 
ment to  them.  They  went  without  food 
for  nine  days  at  a  time  without  feeling 
the  worse  for  it,  shots  and  wounds  did 
no  harm  to  them;  and,  though  they  shed 
tears  of  blood,  they  were  assured  of 
divine  protection  and  aid,  and  they  lived 
in  constant  communion  with  God. 

It  was  among  these  people,  during  a 
5  Q5 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

period  of  thirteen  years,  from  1688  to 
1701,  that  a  new  form  of  the  speaking 
with  tongues  arose.  It  appeared  only  at 
intervals,  but  hundreds  of  people  were 
affected  by  it.^  "Children  three  years 
old  and  upwards  preached  sermons  in 
correct  French,  which  they  could  not 
ordinarily  use,  with  appropriate  emphasis 
and  gestures  impossible  to  a  child.  Some 
of  the  sermons  were  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  long.  The  prophets  'first 
swooned  and  appeared  without  any  feel- 
ing, then  broke  out  into  exhortations — 
fervent,  eloquent,  correct,  well-chosen, 
appropriate,  mostly  in  good  French.' 
There  was  nothing  hysterical  or  wildly 
excited  about  their  manner,  only  they 
were  insensible  to  pain  and  could  not  be 
induced  to  stop.  'The  boldness  of  the 
young  boy  astonished  me,'  writes  an  eye- 
witness. 'It  was,  indeed,  a  marvel  to 
see  an  ignorant  and  timid  child  undertake 

^  Cutten,  "The  Psychological  Phenomena  of  Christianity," 
p.  56,  puts  the  number  at  six  hundred. 

66 


LATER  INSTANCES 

to  teach  the  people,  to  preach  in  a 
language  he  was  incapable  of  speaking 
at  another  time,  expressing  himself  mag- 
nificently, and  presiding  like  a  bishop  in 
an  assembly  of  Christians.' "^ 

Others  besides  the  children  had  the 
same  experience,  speaking  in  the  good 
French  of  the  Huguenot  Bible  while  in 
their  ecstasy,  and  falling  back  into  their 
own  Romance  idiom  when  they  had  re- 
covered. They  then  had  no  recollection 
of  what  they  had  said  in  the  trance  con- 
dition, and  they  had  no  power  to  con- 
verse in  anything  else  than  their  native 
patois.  This  marvel  is  of  the  same  char- 
acter as  that  at  Pentecost.  It  has  been 
explained  as  the  result  of  abnormally  ex- 
cited memories  in  time  of  special  stress 
and  appalling  persecutions.  The  chil- 
dren and  others  were  simply  recalling 
sermons  they  had  heard  from  their  pas- 
tors in  previous  years.  One  writer  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  they  were 

2  Wright,  "Some  New  Testament  Problems,"  p.  293. 

67 


THE  GIFT  OF  "^  '"'ia:ijeS 

remembering  sermons  \htvJtTd  by  their 
grandparents  long  before  they  were  born. 
It  was  an  inherited  memory  at  work! 
''If  we  are  unable  to  conceive  memory 
working  at  such  a  pitch,"  he  says,  "it 
is  because  our  imagination,  not  being 
adequately  sustained  by  knowledge,  is 
unequal  to  conceive  the  degree  to  which 
this  sacred  lore  has  been  burnt  into  the 
soul  of  a  long-suffering  people."^  It  is  re- 
markable that  over  in  Silesia  at  about  the 
same  time  a  sweeping  revival  was  affect- 
ing boys  and  girls  almost  exclusively, 
and  they  are  said  to  have  prayed  and 
preached  with  extraordinary  power.  The 
Cevennes  phenomena  became  known 
through  all  Europe.  Refugees  came  to 
London,  where  John  Lacy  became  a 
leader  among  them.  Sir  Richard  Bulk- 
ley,  a  wealthy  baronet,  was  a  convert, 
and  he  declared  that  he  had  heard  Lacy 
repeat  long  sentences  in  Latin,  and  an- 
other  had  spoken  Hebrew,  though  when 

^  Richard  Heath,  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  Jan.,  1886. 

68 


1  INSTANCES 

they  were  n^^  in  the  spiritual  ecstasy 
they  were  utterly  unable  to  use  these 
tongues. 

It  is  to  the  prophets  of  the  Cevennes 
that  John  Wesley  refers  when  he  is  an- 
swering Doctor  Middleton's  statement 
that,  after  the  apostolic  times,  there  is 
not  in  all  history  one  instance,  even  so 
much  as  mentioned,  of  any  particular 
person  who  pretended  to  exercise  this 
gift.  John  Wesley  answers:  "Sir,  your 
memory  fails  you  again.  It  has  un- 
doubtedly been  pretended  to,  and  that 
at  no  great  distance,  either,  from  our 
time  or  country.  It  has  been  heard  of 
more  than  once,  no  farther  off  than  the 
valleys  of  Dauphiny.  Nor  is  it  yet  fifty 
years  ago  since  the  Protestant  inhabit- 
ants of  those  valleys  so  loudly  pretended 
to  this  and  other  miraculous  powers,  as 
to  give  much  disturbance  to  Paris  itself. 
And  how  did  the  king  of  France  confute 
that  pretense,  and  prevent  its  being 
heard  any  more.^    Not  by  the  pen  of  his 

69 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

scholars,  but  by  (a  truly  heathen  way) 
the  swords  and  bayonets  of  his  dra- 
goons."^ We  think  that  it  was  the  sword 
and  bayonet  that  caused  them,  rather 
than  caused  them  to  cease.  When  peace 
came  these  supposedly  supernatural  phe- 
nomena were  no  longer  seen. 

3.  In  1822  Edward  Irving  came  to 
London  to  preach  in  the  Caledonian 
chapel.  He  was  a  young  Scotchman 
over  six  feet  tall  and  with  a  head  that 
measured  one  foot  in  both  dimensions. 
Carlyle  said  of  him,  ''Bodily  and  spir- 
itually, perhaps  there  was  not,  in  that 
November,  1822,  when  he  first  arrived 
here,  a  man  more  full  of  genial,  energetic 
life  in  all  these  islands."  De  Quincy 
declared  of  him:  "He  was  unquestion- 
ably, by  many  degrees,  the  greatest 
orator  of  our  times.  Of  him,  indeed, 
more  than  of  any  man  whom  I  have 
seen  throughout  my  whole  experience, 
it  might  be  said,  with  truth  and  empha- 

« Wesley's  Works,  Vol.  V,  p.  744. 

70 


LATER  INSTANCES 

sis,  that  he  was  a  Boanerges,  a  son  of 
thunder."  Canning  went  to  hear  him, 
and  afterward,  in  a  discussion  in  Parha- 
ment,  he  told  the  House  that  he  had 
gone  to  a  chapel  without  any  wealthy 
endowments  and  he  had  heard  there  an 
eloquence  that  surpassed  anything  in  his 
experience.  Thereafter  people  had  to 
fight  their  way  into  Irving's  chapel,  and 
great  crowds  besieged  its  doors  whenever 
he  was  expected  to  speak.  A  large  church 
was  built  for  him  in  Regent's  Square, 
and  for  a  time  he  was  unquestionably 
the  greatest  preacher  in  London. 

He  was  a  man  of  most  remarkable 
powers  and  of  most  remarkable  piety. 
He  was  walking  with  his  friend.  Story, 
at  Rosneath,  and  they  came  to  a  high- 
barred  gate.  Irving  leaped  it  at  a 
bound.  "Dear  me,  Irving,"  said  Story, 
"I  did  not  think  you  had  been  so  agile." 
Irving  immediately  replied,  "Once  I 
read  you  an  essay  of  mine,  and  you  said, 
'Dear  me,  Irving,  I  did  not  think  you 

71 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

had  been  so  classical.'  Another  time 
you  heard  me  preach,  'Dear  me,  Irving, 
I  did  not  know  you  had  so  much  imagina- 
tion.' Now,  Story,  you  shall  see  what 
great  things  I  will  do  yet."^  He  decided 
that  he  would  endeavor  to  reach  the 
cultured  classes  with  the  gospel,  for 
those  classes  seemed  most  difficult  to 
influence  and  were  most  neglected.  He 
said  of  his  fellow-clergymen,  "They  pre- 
pare for  teaching  gipsies,  for  teaching 
bargemen,  for  teaching  miners  by  appre- 
hending their  way  of  conceiving  and  es- 
timating truth;  and  why  not  prepare  for 
teaching  imaginative  men  and  political 
men  and  scientific  men  who  bear  the 
world  in  hand.^"^  This  was  his  especial 
call,  and  his  success  was  astounding. 

The  fashionable  world  flocked  to  hear 
him.  Irving  dealt  faithfully  with  them. 
He  came  to  believe  that  they  were  living 

^Henderson,  "The  Religious  Controversies  of  Scotland," 
p.  114. 

6  Oliphant,  "Life  of  Edward  Irving,"  Vol.  I,  p.  167. 

72 


LATER  INSTANCES 

in  the  dawn  of  a  new  dispensation.  He 
prayed  and  hoped  for  a  higher  type  of 
Christianity  than  the  world  had  yet 
known.  He  claimed  that  the  Church  of 
his  day  might  have  Pentecostal  power 
and  Pentecostal  gifts  and  revelations. 
God  had  new  light  for  the  new  times.  He 
said,  "Think  you  that  Abraham  took 
test  of  God  by  his  dealings  with  Noah.^^ 
or  Moses  by  Abraham.^  or  the  Apostles 
at  Pentecost  by  the  schools  of  the 
prophets  in  Bethel  or  in  Gilgal.^  If  we 
have  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  we  have 
the  Word  of  the  Lord  and  nothing  else; 
and  not  thou  or  I,  nay,  not  Paul  nor 
Peter  nor  Moses,  but  He  of  whose  fullness 
they  all  received."^ 

His  daring  genius  plunged  ahead  of 
the  common  crowd.  He  lived  in  the 
presence  of  the  Most  High,  and  he  be- 
lieved in  the  immediate  manifestation 
of  the  divine.  He  wrote  to  his  wife:  "O, 
Isabella,    put    nothing    off;    live    quietly 

7  Oliphant,  Op.  cit,  Vol.  II,  p.  333. 

73 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

unto  eternity.  We  know  not  what  a 
day  may  bring  forth.  If  you  be  languid, 
then  cry  for  help;  if  you  be  under  bond- 
age, then  cry  for  deliverance;  and  abide 
believing,  abide  believing;  opening  your 
heart  to  the  admonitions  of  the  Holy 
One — your  ear  to  the  admonitions  of 
every  faithful  one.  Turn  aside  from 
lies,  from  flattery,  from  vanity  and  folly. 
Be  earnest,  be  grave — always  ready. 
There  will  be  no  folly  nor  laughter  nor 
bedimming  the  truth  with  false  appear- 
ances nor  masquerading  in  eternity." 

It  was  in  this  spirit  he  himself  lived. 
He  was  not  a  vain  man.  He  refused  the 
degree  of  D.  D.  from  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  his  Alma  Mater,  because  he 
had  not  sat  an  examination  for  it.  He 
declined  to  print  a  sermon  which  he  had 
preached  before  royalty  because  he  felt 
that  the  substance  and  the  style  of  it 
were  unworthy  of  preservation.  He  had 
1/Tno  fear  of  man;  he  feared  nothing  but 
jGod  and  sin.    He  made  earnest  with  his 

74 


LATER  INSTANCES 

religion,  and  at  last  his  prayers  were 
answered  and  the  apostolic  gifts  began 
to  appear  in  his  Church.  He  tested 
them  by  every  means  he  had  to  employ. 
He  was  satisfied  of  their  genuineness,  and 
gave  them  free  play  in  his  public  congre- 
gations. At  his  trial  by  the  Church 
courts  he  said:  "I  had  sat  at  the  head 
of  the  Church  praying  that  these  gifts 
might  be  poured  out  on  the  Church,  be- 
lieving in  the  Lord's  faithfulness;  and 
that  I  was  praying  the  prayer  of  faith, 
and  that  He  had  poured  out  the  gifts  in 
answer  to  our  prayers.  Was  I  to  disbe- 
lieve what  in  faith  I  had  been  praying 
for  and  which  we  had  all  been  praying 
for.?  When  it  came  I  had  every  oppor- 
tunity of  proving  it.  I  had  put  it  to 
the  proof  according  to  the  Word  of  God, 
and  I  found  it,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  dis- 
cern, that  it  is  the  thing  written  in  the 
Scriptures,  and  into  the  faith  of  which 
we  had  been  baptized."^    Having  reached 

8  Oliphant,  Ojp.  cit,  Vol.  II,  p.  432. 

75 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

this    conclusion,    he    refused    to    hinder 

what  he  considered  to  be  the  voice  of 

the  Holy  Spirit  in  any  of  his  meetings. 

He  could  not  do  otherwise  and  remain 

■  an  honest  man.    There  were  visions  and 

ecstasies    and   prophecies    and    speaking 

with    tongues.      Irving    was    tried    and 

deposed  from  the  ministry  of  the  Pres- 

i   byterian  Church.     He  was  ejected  from 

!    his  Church  in  1832.     Most  of  his  fash- 

I    ionable    hearers    had    fallen    away,    but 

great  crowds  followed  him  to  Newman 

Street,   where   the   gift   of   tongues   had 

the  right  of  way.    Two  years  later  Irving 

died  of  consumption,  in  the  forty-second 

year  of  his  age. 

Carlyle,  his  boyhood  friend,  wrote  of 
him:  '*  Edward  Irving's  warfare  has 
closed;  if  not  in  victory,  yet  in  invin- 
cibility and  faithful  endurance  to  the 
end.  .  .  .  Here  once  more  was  a 
genuine  man  sent  into  this  our  un-gen- 
uine  phantasmagoria  of  a  world,  which 
would  go  to  ruin  without  such;  here  once 

76 


"^       LATER  INSTANCES 

more  was  enacted  the  old  tragedy,  and 
has  had  its  fifth  act  now,  of  The  Messenger 
oj  Truth  in  the  Age  oj  Shams.  .  .  . 
The  Spirit  of  the  Time,  which  could  not 
enlist  him  as  its  soldier,  must  needs,  in 
all  ways,  fight  against  him  as  its  enemy: 
it  has  done  its  part,  and  he  has  done  his. 
.  .  .  One  light  shone  on  him  always: 
alas,  through  a  medium  more  and  more 
turbid:  the  light  from  Heaven.  His 
Bible  was  there,  wherein  must  lie  healing 
for  all  sorrows.  To  the  Bible  he  more 
and  more  exclusively  addressed  him- 
self. If  it  is  the  written  Word  of  God, 
shall  it  not  be  the  acted  Word,  too.'^ 
Is  it  mere  sound  then;  black  printer's 
ink  on  white  rag-paper?  A  half -man 
could  have  passed  on  without  answering; 
a  whole  man  must  answer.  Hence  Proph- 
ecies of  Millenniums,  Gifts  of  Tongues — 
whereat  Orthodoxy  prims  herself  into 
decent  wonder,  and  waves  her  Avaunt! 
Irving  clave  to  his  belief  as  to  his  soul's 
soul;  followed  it  whithersoever,  through 

77 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

earth  or  air,  it  might  lead  him;  toihng 
as  never  man  toiled  to  spread  it,  to  gain 
the  world's  ear  for  it — in  vain.  Ever 
wilder  waxed  the  confusion  without  and 
within.  The  misguided  noble-minded 
had  now  nothing  left  to  do  but  die.  He 
died  the  death  of  the  true  and  brave. 
His  last  words,  they  say,  were,  'In  life 
and  in  death  I  am  the  Lord's.' — Amen! 
Amen!  One  who  knew  him  well,  and 
may  with  good  cause  love  him,  has  said, 
*But  for  Irving,  I  had  never  known  what 
the  communion  of  man  with  man  means. 
His  was  the  freest,  brotherliest,  bravest 
human  soul  mine  ever  came  into  contact 
with:  I  call  him,  on  the  whole,  the  best 
man  I  have  ever,  after  trial  enough, 
found  in  this  world,  or  now  hope  to 
find.'"^ 

Six  months  after  Irving's  death  the 
Catholic  Apostolic  Church  was  organized 
by  his  followers,  and  it  has  been  a  vig- 
orous  and   growing   Church   ever   since. 

9  Carlyle,  "Essays,"  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  222-225. 

78 


LATER  INSTANCES 

It  has  established  itself  in  England,  Scot- 
land, Canada,  the  United  States,  Prussia, 
France,  Switzerland,  Ireland,  Belgium, 
Russia,  Denmark,  Sweden,  Australia,  and 
India.  The  gift  of  tongues  is  continually 
manifested  in  these  Churches.  Ross- 
teuscher,  in  his  book,  "Der  Aufbau  der 
Kirche  auf  den  urspriinglichen  Grund- 
lagen,"  describes  it  thus:  "The  speaking 
in  a  tongue  lasts  longer  or  shorter,  five 
minutes  at  most.  Sometimes  it  is  only 
a  few  words,  as  it  were  the  first  out- 
burst of  the  manifestation;  it  is,  so  to 
speak,  the  hidden  source  from  which 
there  comes  afterwards,  in  the  intelli- 
gible part  of  the  discourse,  the  stream  of 
life,  fitted  to  water  the  Church.  It  is 
always  a  deeply  felt  kind  of  speech, 
which  evidently  fills  the  whole  soul  of 
the  speaker.  The  discourse  is  accom- 
panied sometimes  with  tears  and  groans, 
sometimes  with  cries  of  joy  and  even 
laughter.  The  speaking  is  regularly 
formed  and  markedly  rhythmical.    .    .    . 

79 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

It  is  uttered  with  a  force  and  a  fullness 
of  voice  and  often  with  a  rapidity  foreign 
to  the  person's  ordinary  mode  of  ex- 
pression. They  are  accents  which  shake 
the  soul  and  pierce  the  heart  as  prophecy 
itself  can  not  do.  The  voice  acquires  a 
majesty  found  nowhere  else. 
One  of  the  inspired  said  to  Irving :  '  When 
I  am  seized  by  the  Spirit  and  lifted  into 
the  presence  of  God  as  one  speaking 
with  tongues,  it  is  as  if  a  covering  were 
dropped  over  all  that  surrounds  me,  and 
as  if  I  no  longer  saw  anything  except  the 
goal  of  my  aspiration  and  the  way  lead- 
ing to  it.  .  .  .  I  feel  myself  shut  in 
with  God,  hidden  in  His  tent,  secure  from 
all  the  suggestions  of  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil.'  .  .  .  Another 
of  the  inspired  thus  described  the  spir- 
itual contents  of  the  state:  'The  in- 
timate perception  of  the  presence  of  God 
in  Christ,  and  of  my  own  state  in  Jesus, 
with  a  torrent  of  joy  which  words  can 
not  describe.     ...     In  this  state  self- 

80 


LATER  INSTANCES 

consciousness  blends  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  God  without  being  lost  in  it. 
The  inspired  one  is  conscious  of  his  own 
existence  and  of  a  power  superior  to  his 
existence  with  the  same  clearness.  This 
inward  state  remains  the  same  during 
the  intelligible  and  the  unintelligible 
part  of  the  discourse.' "^<^ 

A  less  sympathetic  account  of  the  ex- 
ternal phenomena  is  given  by  Hohl,  in 
a  volume  written  in  1839:  "Before  the 
outburst  of  speech,  it  was  noticeable 
that  the  person  about  to  speak  became 
profoundly  self-absorbed,  isolated  from 
his  surroundings;  he  shut  his  eyes  and 
covered  them  with  his  hand.  All  at 
once,  as  if  struck  with  an  electric  shock, 
he  underwent  a  convulsion  which  shook 
his  whole  body.  Then  there  escaped 
from  his  quivering  mouth,  as  it  were,  a 
burning  torrent  of  strange  words,  forcibly 
emphasized,  and  which,  to  my  ear,  re- 

^^ Quoted  in  Godet,  "Commentary  on  First  Corinthians," 
Vol.  II,  pp.  286-287. 

6  81 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

sembled  most  those  of  the  Hebrew  tongue. 
Every  sentence  was  usually  repeated 
three  times,  and  given  forth  with  incred- 
ible vigor  and  precision.  To  this  first 
explosion  of  strange  sounds,  which  were 
looked  upon  as  the  evidence  of  genuine 
inspiration,  there  succeeded  each  time, 
and  with  emphasis  equally  forcible,  a 
longer  or  shorter  address  in  English, 
which  was  also  repeated  several  times 
sentence  by  sentence,  or  even  word  by 
word,  and  which  consisted  sometimes  of 
serious  exhortations  or  terrible  warnings, 
sometimes  of  consolations  full  of  unction. 
This  latter  part  passed  as  the  developed 
interpretation  of  the  former,  though  it 
was  not  expressly  given  out  as  such  by 
the  speaker.  After  this  manifestation 
the  inspired  person  still  remained  for  a 
time  buried  in  profound  silence,  and 
only  recovered  slowly  from  this  great 
expenditure  of  force."^^ 

Philip  Schaff  heard  the  speaking  with 

"  Quoted  in  Godet,  op.  cit.,  p.  278. 

82 


LATER  INSTANCES 

tongues  in  a  congregation  in  New  York, 
and  he  describes  it  as  follows:  *'Tlie 
words  were  broken,  ejaculatory,  and 
unintelligible,  but  uttered  in  abnormal, 
startling,  and  impressive  sounds,  in  a 
state  of  apparent  unconsciousness  and 
rapture,  and  without  any  control  over 
the  tongue,  which  was  seized,  as  it  were, 
by  a  foreign  power.  "^^  Ji  j^as  been 
declared  by  some  that  fragments  of 
known  tongues — Spanish,  Italian,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew — have  been  heard  inter- 
spersed in  the  utterances  of  those  under 
the  power. 

4.  Similar  experiences  are  said  to  have 
occurred  among  the  Franciscans  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  the  Jansenists, 
and  the  early  Quakers,  and  the  Mor- 
mons, and  the  Lasare  or  Readers  of 
Sweden  in  1841-3,  and  in  the  Irish  re- 
vivals of  1859,  and  in  the  great  Welsh 
revival  of  1904.  In  the  latter  meetings 
young  Welshmen  and  Welshwomen  who 

12  Schaff,  "History  of  the  Christian  Church,"  Vol.  I,  p.  237. 

83 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

could  not  speak  a  dozen  words  in  Welsh 
in  ordinary  conversation  were  remark- 
ably and,  as  it  seemed  to  them,  super- 
naturally  empowered  to  pray  fervently 
and  fluently  for  five  and  ten  minutes  in 
idiomatic  Welsh.  This  enabling  to  speak 
in  what  was  supposedly  an  unknown 
tongue  was  to  many  people  the  most 
remarkable  feature  of  that  remarkable 
revival. 

5.  A  gift  of  tongues  movement  is  at 
present  attracting  considerable  atten- 
tion around  the  world.  I  am  told  that  it 
began  among  the  Scandinavians  through 
the  meetings  held  by  an  Englishman — a 
Wesleyan  local  preacher  who  had  been 
sent  there  to  take  charge  of  some  mining 
operations.  The  Methodists  were  largely 
affected  by  it,  but  the  movement  was 
finally  repudiated  by  the  Methodist 
Church.  The  founder  of  the  movement 
returned  to  England  and  held  meetings 
in  Wales — meetings  which  were  said  to 
have  more  evidence  of  spiritual  power  in 

84 


LATER  INSTANCES 

them  than  even  those  of  the  great  re- 
vival. A  wealthy  man  in  India  heard  of 
them  and  wrote  the  leader  that  it  had 
been  revealed  to  him  by  the  Spirit  that 
the  movement  ought  to  be  inaugurated 
in  India,  and  he  sent  the  passage  money 
for  the  preacher  to  come.  He  went,  and 
his  experiences  in  Scandinavia  and  in 
Wales  were  repeated  there.  In  the 
United  States  the  power  seems  to  have 
manifested  itself  first  in  Los  Angeles, 
and  it  has  spread  rapidly  eastward  until 
now  there  are  companies  of  the  believers 
formed  in  most  of  the  large  cities  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada. 

In  Chicago  I  had  my  first  opportunity 
to  see  this  phenomenon  for  myself.  The 
leader  of  the  movement  was  a  Ken- 
tuckian  and  a  Baptist.  For  five  years 
he  conducted  a  full  gospel  mission  with 
average  success.  In  1906  his  people  be- 
gan to  exhibit  these  phenomena,  and  he 
followed  them  into  the  possession  and 
the  display  of  the  same  gifts.     The  mis- 

85 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

sion  has  been  "run  along  these  Knes" 
ever  since,  and  it  now  has  a  dozen 
flourishing  branches  in  the  city.  The 
most  notable  work  seems  to  have  been 
done  among  the  Italians.  Over  a  hun- 
dred of  them  were  immersed  in  the 
baptistery  of  the  central  mission  in  the 
first  winter.  The  mission  hall  was  well- 
filled  when  we  visited  it.  The  faithful 
sit  closely  massed  in  the  front  half  of 
the  hall,  and  the  visitors  and  unbelievers 
sit  in  the  rear.  All  through  the  service, 
and  here  and  there  through  the  crowd, 
persons  were  affected  with  nervous  par- 
oxysms that  made  them  shudder  and 
writhe  and  sometimes  occasioned  con- 
tortions that  must  have  been  very  pain- 
ful to  the  subject,  and  one  after  another 
began  to  draw  in  the  breath  between 
the  teeth  in  a  hissing  sound  that  sug- 
gested a  serpent  and  the  possession  by 
evil  spirits  rather  than  good.  Then  the 
speaking  with  tongues  would  begin  with 
ejaculations  that  appeared  to  bubble  up 

86 


LATER  INSTANCES 

from  the  depths  and  burst  forth  from 
the  hps  with  uncontrollable  energy. 

The  most  of  the  people  affected  were 
foreigners,  and,  if  I  could  judge  cor- 
rectly from  their  appearance  and  accent, 
they  were  Norwegians  and  Swedes.  The 
most  of  them  were  quite  intelligent  and 
respectable  in  outward  seeming,  and 
would  have  sat  in  any  ordinary  religious 
congregation  without  attracting  atten- 
tion by  any  peculiarity  of  feature  or 
dress.  There  were  some,  however,  who 
seemed  fit  candidates  for  an  insane 
asylum,  evidently  with  small  mentality 
and  on  the  edge  of  nervous  wreck.  All 
seemed  to  belong  to  the  working  class, 
and  there  was  an  unusual  proportion  of 
middle-aged  and  elderly,  fleshy  women 
who  appeared  to  be  matrons  and  house- 
keepers from  humble  homes,  and  who 
probably  found  the  only  excitement  in 
their  humdrum  existence  in  these  serv- 
ices. 

A    visiting    brother    from    Winnipeg 

87 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

"preached."  He  talked  in  the  old-fash- 
ioned, high-keyed,  sing-song  style,  with 
no  consecutive  thought.  He  told  us 
that  he  did  not  know  what  he  would 
say  to  us,  but  he  would  say  whatever 
the  Spirit  would  give  him.  The  Spirit 
evidently  gave  him  little  or  nothing  to 
say  concerning  his  text,  and  he  fell  to 
telling  us  of  his  own  experience.  He 
had  received  the  gift  of  tongues  in  that 
room  just  one  year  ago  that  day,  and  he 
had  taken  the  next  train  for  Winnipeg, 
his  home.  There  the  Lord  had  kept 
him  faithful  and  had  greatly  blessed 
him,  and  his  home  had  become  the  center 
of  the  movement  in  the  Northwest  He 
told  how  the  work  had  spread  among 
the  Indians,  and  some  had  come  as  far 
as  two  or  three  hundred  miles  to  get  a 
blessing  "that  the  theological  professors 
and  doctors  of  divinity  never  had."  He 
would  talk  for  a  few  minutes  in  English 
and  then  run  off  suddenly  into  the  speak- 
ing with  tongues.    The  tongue  was  unin- 

88 


LATER  INSTANCES 

telligible  gibberish  to  us.  It  might  have 
been  an  Indian  language;  it  seemed  more 
hke  that  than  any  of  the  more  civiHzed 
tongues.  It  was  smooth  and  fluent  and 
somewhat  musical.  It  seemed  to  us 
that  the  speaker  resorted  to  the  tongue 
when  he  could  think  of  nothing  else  to 
say.  It  gave  him  time  to  collect  himself 
and  get  a  fresh  start.  In  other  meetings 
we  have  seen  speakers  seemingly  ex- 
haust their  line  of  thought  and  then  fall 
to  leaping  and  shouting  hallelujahs  until 
the  meeting  warmed  up  a  little  and  they 
had  thought  of  something  else  to  say. 
The  leader  told  us  afterward  that  he 
himself  had  been  told  that  he  had 
spoken  in  good  Hebrew  and  Norwegian 
when  speaking  with  tongues,  although 
he  did  not  know  those  languages.  The 
Chicago  people  do  not  believe  that  the 
speaking  with  tongues  is  given  for  mis- 
sionary purposes.  They  do  not  have 
any  hope  that  if  they  went  to  a  foreign 
country  the  Lord  would  give  them  the 

89 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

tongue  of  that  country  upon  the  moment 
of  their  arrival.  He  might  and  He  might 
not.  They  feel  sure  that  no  such  miracle 
is  promised  in  the  Word  of  God.  In 
Los  Angeles,  in  Pittsburgh,  in  Sweden, 
and  other  places  it  is  reported  that 
people  bark  like  dogs  and  cackle  like 
hens  and  make  various  sounds  like  birds 
and  beasts  in  the  meetings.  We  heard 
nothing  but  the  hissing  serpent  sound  in 
Chicago.  Elsewhere  we  hear  that  there 
are  frenzied  huggings  and  kissings  and 
rolling  upon  the  floor,  with  which  the 
civil  authorities  have  sometimes  had  to 
interfere,  as  they  verged  so  closely  upon 
immoralities.  We  saw  nothing  of  the 
sort  in  Chicago.  One  woman  fell  heavily 
like  a  log  from  her  chair  to  the  floor  and 
lay  there  for  hours  in  a  trance,  jerking 
occasionally  and  ejaculating  at  intervals, 
"Glory  to  Jesus,  Jesus,  Jesus,  Jesus, 
Jesus!"  and  then  relapsing  into  sleep  or 
trance  again.  Little  attention  was  paid 
to  her,  and  everybody  went  away  at  the 

90 


LATER  INSTANCES 

close  of  the  service  and  left  her  there  on 
the  floor  with  one  old  lady  standing 
guard  over  her. 

In  the  testimony  meeting  one  sister 
told  how  she  had  seen  a  fiery  serpent  in 
mid-heaven  in  a  vision.  In  the  prayer 
service  there  was  the  singing  in  the 
Spirit,  which  was  one  of  the  features 
of  the  Irvingite  movement  in  London. 
While  one  prayed,  many  were  ejaculating 
and  some  were  praying  in  tongues.  The 
leader  on  the  platform  seemed  to  me  to 
be  the  loudest  among  them,  and  he 
would  frequently  come  out  at  the  end 
of  a  sentence  upon  some  emphatic  tone 
which  served  as  a  keynote  to  the  rest 
of  them,  and  twenty  or  more  would  take 
their  parts  and  begin  to  intone  in  har- 
mony. It  was  more  or  less  difficult  to 
get  the  thing  started,  but  when  it  once 
got  to  swinging  it  was  a  really  remark- 
able exhibition  of  extemporized  melody. 
It  was  a  weird,  unregulated  chant,  rising 
and  falling,  dying  away  and  swelling  out 

91 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

again  unexpectedly,  as  though  some  heav- 
enly musician  were  playing  upon  his 
human  instruments  at  his  own  free-will. 
Edward  Irving  has  testified  that  this 
singing  in  the  Spirit  seemed  to  him  to 
embody  more  than  earthly  music  and 
suggest  the  archetypal  melody  of  which 
all  the  Church's  chants  and  hymns  are 
but  faint,  poor  echoes. ^^  The  Chicago 
leader  explained  to  us  afterward  that 
these  people  never  had  had  any  instruc- 
tion in  music  and  that  they  knew  noth- 
ing about  the  principles  of  harmony,  and 
that  it  was  only  when  they  were  in  the 
Spirit  that  they  could  sing  like  that;  and 
he  further  averred  that  the  least  intru- 
sion of  self  would  mean  a  discordant  note 
in  that  music,  so  that  it  was  clear  to  us 
that  all  who  took  part  in  that  exercise 
were  under  obligation  to  keep  in  tune 
on  penalty  of  the  disclosure  of  an  un- 
satisfactory spiritual  state. 

The    present    Tongues    Movement    is 

13  Oliphant,  oy.  cit.  Vol.  II,  p.  208. 

92 


LATER  INSTANCES 

likely  to  run  its  course  in  a  few  months 
or  a  few  years,  but  its  influence  will  be 
felt  for  another  generation  at  least. 
These  phenomena  have  occurred  so  fre- 
quently in  the  nineteenth  century  that  it 
seems  probable,  at  least,  that  we  will 
hear  of  more  and  more  of  them  in  the 
century  upon  which  we  have  entered. 
It  may  be  that  no  great  and  sweeping 
revival  will  occur  without  more  or  less 
of  their  accompaniment.  They  will  flour- 
ish most  among  the  poorer  and  the  il- 
literate classes,  but  they  will  by  no 
means  be  confined  to  these.  Past  expe- 
rience proves  that  educated  and  high- 
bred people  are  likewise  influenced  by 
them.  It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  in- 
quire a  little  more  closely  as  to  their 
good  and  evil  and  the  best  attitude  to 
assume  toward  them. 


93 


Chapter  V 

REASONS    GIVEN    IN    FAVOR    OF 
SPEAKING  WITH  TONGUES 

1.  "They  are  a  sign  and  a  manifesta- 
tion to  the  unbeliever  (1  Cor.  14:22). 
They  attract  his  attention  and  may 
lead  to  his  conversion."  This  is  true. 
It  is  also  true  that  many  unbelievers  are 
repelled  by  these  phenomena.  They 
think  they  are  evidences  of  hysteria  and 
insanity,  and  are  therefore  prejudiced 
against  the  Christianity  which  affects 
them  and  are  made  more  difficult  of 
approach  through  methods  which  seem 
to  them  saner.  It  might  be  difficult  to 
determine  whether  more  were  helped  or 
hindered  by  the  strangeness  of  the  gift 
of  tongues.  It  may  depend  upon  the 
community  in  which  they  appear.  In 
the  average  Church  community  of  Amer- 

94 


REASONS  GIVEN 

ica  I  think  there  is  no  doubt  that  they 
will  do  more  harm  than  good  among  the 
unbelievers. 

2.  "They  are  an  evidence  to  the  be- 
liever that  he  is  possessed  fully  by  the 
Spirit  of  God.  People  may  say  and  think 
that  they  are  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
but  when  the  Spirit  takes  possession  of  a 
man's  organs  of  speech  and  uses  them 
without  his  aid  to  praise  God  in  strange 
tongues,  the  man  has  an  assurance  of 
the  Holy  Spirit's  presence  with  him  that 
others  have  not."  It  may  be  that  the 
loss  of  self-control  over  the  vocal  organs, 
and  the  partial  or  complete  loss  of  self- 
consciousness  in  the  time  of  audible 
speech,  is  a  valuable  evidence  to  some 
people  that  they  are  specially  gifted  and 
more  fully  inspired  than  the  rest  of  us. 
We  give  them  joy  of  that  conclusion,  if 
it  is  helpful  to  them.  We  say  only  for 
ourselves  that  we  have  amply  sufficient 
evidence  of  the  Spirit's  presence  with  us 
in  the  use  of  our  own  reason  and  of  our 

95 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

own  tongue,  and  the  abnegation  of  the 
use  of  these  would  not  seem  a  blessing, 
but  rather  a  hardship,  to  us.  If  the 
gift  of  tongues  were  a  sign  of  the  direct 
union  of  the  individual  soul  with  the 
Holy  Spirit,  we  might  recognize  it  as 
valuable  in  so  far  as  it  served  that  end; 
but  we  rejoice  to  believe  that  this  direct 
communion  may  be  maintained,  and  is 
maintained,  by  multitudes  of  people 
without  this  sign,  and  the  sign  is  of  in- 
finitely less  importance  than  the  thing 
signified,  and  it  is  in  no  degree  necessary 
to  the  assurance  of  direct  communion 
with  the  Spirit  of  God. 

3.  "They  tend  to  the  edification  of 
the  individual  believer."  We  can  not 
dispute  this,  since  the  statement  rests 
on  individual  conviction  alone;  and  we 
have  no  desire  to  dispute  it.  It  is  evi- 
dent, however,  that  the  speaking  in 
strange  tongues  does  not  edify  a  general 
congregation  unless  it  be  accompanied 
with    an   interpretation.      Therefore,    in 

96 


REASONS  GIVEN 

the  interest  of  the  general  good,  all 
speaking  with  tongues  ought  as  far  as 
possible  to  be  banished  from  a  public 
service  if  it  does  not  eventuate  clearly 
in  the  edification  of  the  general  body  of 
believers. 

4.  "They  tend  to  cultivate  the  spirit 
of  humility."  Irving  said:  "The  chief 
reason  of  this  ordinance  is  to  make  void 
and  empty  the  eloquence  and  arguments, 
and  other  natural  ornaments  of  human 
speech,  and  to  show  that  God  edifies  the 
soul,  in  a  manner  wholly  independent 
thereof,  by  direct  communications  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  which  is  the  milk  of  our 
babyhood,  the  power  in  the  word  to 
nourish  any  soul.  .  .  .  Because  this 
gift  of  tongues  and  prophesying,  which  is 
its  fruit,  are  the  constant  demonstrations 
of  God  dwelling  in  a  man,  and  teaching 
him  all  spiritual  things  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  without  help  of  any  third  thing  or 
third  party,  to  the  great  undervaluing 
and  entire  disannulling  of  the  powers  of 
7  97 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

natural  reason  and  speech  as  a  fountain- 
head  of  divine  instruction:  therefore  they 
must  ever  be  fatal  to  the  pride  of  intel- 
lect, to  the  prudence  and  wisdom  of  the 
world,  to  the  scheming,  counseling,  and 
wise  dealing  of  the  natural  man;  to  all 
mere  philosophers,  theologians,  poets, 
sages,  wits  of  every  name;  yea,  makes 
war  upon  them,  brings  them  to  naught, 
and  utterly  defeats  their  pretensions  to 
do  anything  for  man  in  the  way  of  the 
glorious  rest  and  refreshing.  It  is  need- 
ful, therefore,  that  all  scribes  and  learned 
men,  philosophers  and  statesmen,  and 
men  of  worldly  gifts,  and  all  men  what- 
soever, should  become  as  little  children; 
as  those  who  are  weaned  from  the  milk 
and  drawn  from  the  breast,  in  order  to 
be  fed  and  nourished  of  God  in  this  spir- 
itual way,  which  is  the  only  real  way, 
and  of  which  speaking  with  tongues  is 
only  the  manifestation."^ 

If  all  of  this  is  true,  and  the  possession 

1  Edward  Irving,  "Works,"  Vol.  V,  pp.  557-559. 

98 


REASONS  GIVEN 

of  the  gift  of  tongues  fosters  the  spirit 
of  humihty  in  the  individual  upon  whom 
it  is  bestowed,  we  may  grant  that  in  so 
far  it  is  a  benefit  to  him.  It  has  seemed 
to  us,  however,  that  the  gift  might  work 
the  other  way.  Some  have  suggested 
that  it  is  the  only  suflScient  evidence  of 
the  possession  of  and  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  this  feeling  has  tended  to  form  a 
class  division  among  believers — the  for- 
mation of  an  exclusive  and  superior  caste 
who  were  tempted  to  deny  the  Chris- 
tian experience  of  those  not  gifted  as 
themselves.  This  is  not  a  necessary,  but 
it  is  a  frequent,  accompaniment  of  the 
phenomenon.  Possibly  it  ought  to  tend 
to  humility,  but  it  may,  and  it  frequently 
does,  tend  to  pride. 

5.  "They  are  the  proof  of  a  spiritual 
Church,  and  therefore  ought  to  be  de- 
sired by  all  at  all  times."  We  quote 
again  from  Irving  at  this  point:  "The 
true  reason  why  the  gift  of  tongues  hath 
ceased  to  be  in  the  Church  is,  the  exalta- 

99 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

tion  of  the  natural  methods  of  teaching 
above,  or  into  copartnery  with,  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  meanness  of 
our  idea,  and  the  weakness  of  our  faith, 
concerning  the  oneness  of  Christ  glorified 
with  His  Church  on  earth:  the  un worthi- 
ness of  our  doctrine  concerning  the  per- 
son and  office  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  knit 
up  the  believer  into  complete  oneness 
with  Christ,  every  thread  and  filament 
of  our  mortal  humanity  with  His  human- 
ity, immortal  and  glorious;  to  bring 
down  into  the  Church  a  complete  Christ, 
and  keep  Him  there,  ever  filling  her 
bosom,  and  working  in  her  members;  the 
shortcoming  of  our  knowledge,  in  respect 
to  the  gifts  themselves ;  our  having  ceased 
to  lament  their  absence,  and  to  pray  for 
their  return;  our  want  of  fasting,  and 
humiliation,  and  crying  unto  the  Lord; 
our  contentment  to  be  without  them;  our 
base  and  false  theories  to  account  for 
their  absence,  without  taking  guilt  to 
ourselves.    Any  one  of  these  causes  were 

100 


REASONS  GIVEN 

sufficient,  all  of  them  are  far  more  than 
sufficient,  to  account  for  their  long  ab- 
sence from  the  bosom  of  the  Church. 
These  are  the  true  reasons;  and  the 
commonly  given  reason,  that  they  were 
designed  only  for  a  short  time,  is  utterly 
false  and  most  pernicious. "^ 

This  sets  forth  clearly  the  usual  as- 
sumption in  their  favor.  The  Apostolic 
Church  was  a  very  spiritual  Church,  and 
it  had  these  gifts.  We  ought  to  strive 
for  the  same  degree  of  spirituality  and 
for  the  same  gifts.  They  can  be  had  by 
fasting  and  prayer.  Therefore  it  is  to 
our  shame  that  we  do  not  have  them. 
We  say  in  reply  that  the  Apostolic 
Church  was  not  the  ideal  Church,  and 
that  we  have  many  Churches  to-day 
that  are  more  spiritual  than  the  Church 
at  Corinth  was  and  far  more  enlightened 
than  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem  were  or 
the  people  at  Csesarea  and  Ephesus  who 
had  the  gift  of  tongues.    There  are  much 

2  Edward  Trving.  "Works,"  Vol.  V,  p.  560. 

101 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

better  tokens  of  spirituality  than  the 
display  of  these  gifts.  We  covet  the  bet- 
ter gifts  and  are  well  content  with  the 
best.  We  can  do  without  the  least,  as 
long  as  we  have  the  better  and  best. 


102 


Chapter  VI 

BEST  GENERAL  ATTITUDE 

TOWARD  THE  GIFT 

OF  TONGUES 

As  AN  illustration  of  a  possible  sane 
and  sensible  attitude  toward  all  phenom- 
ena of  this  character,  I  quote  John 
Wesley's  Journal  for  Sunday,  November 
25,  1759:  "I  observed  a  remarkable  dif- 
ference, since  I  was  here  in  Everton  be- 
fore, as  to  the  manner  of  the  work.  None 
now  were  in  trances,  none  cried  out,  none 
fell  down  or  were  convulsed:  only  some 
trembled  exceedingly,  a  low  murmur  was 
heard,  and  many  were  refreshed  with  the 
multitude  of  peace.  The  danger  was,  to 
regard  extraordinary  circumstances  too 
much,  such  as  outcries,  convulsions,  vi- 
sions, trances,  as  if  these  were  essential  to 
the  inward  work,  so  that  it  could  not  go 
on  without  them.     Perhaps  the  danger 

103 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

is,  to  regard  them  too  little;  to  condemn 
them  altogether;  to  imagine  they  had 
nothing  of  God  in  them,  and  were  a 
hindrance  to  His  work.  Whereas  the 
truth  is:  1.  God  suddenly  and  strongly 
convinced  many  that  they  were  lost 
sinners,  the  natural  consequence  whereof 
were  sudden  outcries  and  strong  bodily 
convulsions;  2.  To  strengthen  and  en- 
courage them  that  believed,  and  to  make 
His  work  more  apparent,  He  favored 
several  of  them  with  divine  dreams, 
others  with  trances  and  visions;  3.  In 
some  of  these  instances,  after  a  time, 
nature  mixed  with  grace;  4.  Satan  like- 
wise mimicked  this  work  of  God  in  order 
to  discredit  the  whole  work;  and  yet  it 
is  not  wise  to  give  up  this  part  any  more 
than  to  give  up  the  whole.  At  first  it 
was,  doubtless,  wholly  from  God.  It  is 
partly  so  at  this  day;  and  He  will  enable 
us  to  discern  how  far,  in  every  case,  the 
work  is  pure,  and  where  it  mixes  or  de- 
generates.    .     .     .     The  shadow  is  no 

104 


BEST  GENERAL  ATTITUDE 

disparagement  of  the  substance,  nor  the 
counterfeit  of  the  real  diamond. "^ 

There  is  nothing  in  that  paragraph 
which  deals  directly  with  the  speaking 
with  tongues.  I  do  not  find  any  record 
that  the  distinctive  Methodist  meetings 
were  ever  visited  by  this  phenomenon. 
The  French  Prophets  of  London,  and 
their  followers,  the  successors  of  the 
movement  among  the  peasants  of  the 
Cevennes,  made  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
for  Wesley,  and  some  Methodists  were 
influenced  by  them;  but  the  Methodist 
movement  cut  them  off  in  the  very  be- 
ginning, and  their  later  extravagances 
can  not  be  laid  to  the  account  of  Metho- 
dism. We  take  it,  however,  that  the 
quotation  from  Wesley's  Journal  sets 
forth  his  general  attitude  toward  all 
phenomena  of  this  character;  and  if  it 
had  been  necessary  he  would  have  in- 
cluded the  speaking  with  tongues  along 
with  the  visions  and  trances  and  con- 

»  "Wesley's  Works,"  Vol.  IV,  p.  49. 

105 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

vulsions.  The  best  general  attitude 
toward  them  will  be  one  of  consistent 
tolerance  and  persistent  testing,  a  recogni- 
tion oj  their  occasional  and  individual  and 
proportionate  value,  together  with  a  con- 
stant insistence  upon  their  orderly  and 
edifying  use. 


106 


Chapter  VII 

FOUR    PAULINE    PRINCIPLES    OF 
CONTROL 

1.  Proportionate  Value. — The  Church 
at  Corinth  was  setting  chief  value  upon 
the  gift  of  tongues.  It  was  a  talkative 
Church  to  begin  with,  and  it  had  a  tend- 
ency to  run  mostly  to  tongue.  The  power 
of  speaking  in  unknown  tongues  seemed 
to  it  the  highest  proof  of  spiritual  pos- 
session and  inspiration.  Paul  does  not 
minify  the  gift  of  tongues  in  itself,  but 
he  puts  it  at  the  bottom  of  the  list  of  spir- 
itual gifts.  He  says,  "In  the  Church  I 
had  rather  speak  five  words  with  my 
understanding,  that  I  might  instruct 
others  also,  than  ten  thousand  words  in 
a  tongue"  (1  Cor.  14:19).  A  word  of 
testimony  unto  edification  in  a  public 
meeting  is  worth  two  thousand  times  more 

107 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

than  a  word  in  an  unknown  tongue. 
Every  word  of  a  helpful  sermon  is  worth 
two  thousand  times  as  much  as  a  word 
in  an  unknown  tongue.  That  dispropor- 
tion, one  to  two  thousand,  is  too  great 
for  any  one  who  is  capable  of  sane  and 
sensible  discourse  to  be  tempted  to  any 
voluntary  indulgence  in  a  glossolalia. 

Paul  seems  to  suggest  in  this  immediate 
context  that  the  gift  of  tongues  had  to 
do  with  the  infancy  experience  of  the 
individual  and  of  the  Church,  and  was 
not  to  be  desired  or  cultivated  in  their 
maturer  life.  He  says,  '*  Brethren,  be 
not  children  in  mind:  yet  in  malice  be 
ye  babes,  but  in  mind  be  men"  (1  Cor. 
14:20).  Pentecost  marked  the  birth  of 
the  Christian  Church.  The  disciples  at 
Csesarea  and  at  Ephesus  who  had  the 
gift  of  tongues  had  just  accepted  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  experience  marked  the 
first  transports  of  their  joy.  There  is 
no  indication  in  the  Book  of  Acts  that 
the    glossolalia    formed    a    part    of    the 

108 


FOUR  PAULINE  PRINCIPLES 

regular  worship  of  the  Christian  Church, 
or  was  ever  experienced  except  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  Christian  hfe.  It 
was  a  childish  transport,  not  a  mature 
development.  It  was  natural  to  children 
and  could  be  excused  in  them.  It  was 
unnatural  in  maturity,  and  to  desire  it 
was  childish  and  to  exercise  it  was 
babyish.  Men  ought  to  speak  under- 
standingly.  This  seems  to  be  the  posi- 
tion of  Paul,  as  far  as  the  public  services 
were  concerned.  He  would  two  thou- 
sand times  rather  have  a  prophecy  in  a 
public  meeting  than  a  powwow.  The 
Church  ought  to  advance  out  of  the 
kindergarten  stage  into  the  more  ad- 
vanced and  more  self-controlled  and 
more  profitable  higher  classes.  Where 
this  proportionate  value  of  the  gift  of 
tongues  is  plainly  preached  and  insisted 
upon,  it  is  not  likely  that  many  will 
exercise  it  or  that  older  and  maturer 
Christians  will  find  any  attraction  in  it. 
2.    Edification. — ''Let  all  things  be 

109 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

done  unto  edifying"  (1  Cor.  14:26.) 
The  public  service  is  not  held  in  order 
that  any  individual  may  make  a  display 
of  his  particular  gifts,  but  that  the  whole 
congregation  may  be  blessed.  Whatever 
tends  to  build  them  all  up  in  spiritual 
things  must  have  the  right  of  way.  Let 
that  be  the  test  of  value  and  let  that 
decide  the  right  to  exercise  any  gift,  not 
the  marvel  of  it,  but  the  usefulness  of  it. 
If  it  failed  to  edify  the  Church,  let  it  be 
omitted.  What  profited  the  individual 
could  be  practiced  in  private.  The 
public  practice  of  gifts  must  be  of  profit 
to  all,  and  not  to  any  one  alone.  Let 
this  rule  be  rigorously  applied  to  any 
exercise  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  and  it 
will  occasion  no  trouble  in  any  com- 
munity. Any  sincere  Christian  will  be 
willing  to  bring  his  gift  to  this  test  of 
usefulness,  and  as  soon  as  he  or  the 
Church  community  is  convinced  that  his 
exercise  of  the  gift  does  not  tend  to  edi- 
fication   and    general    benefit,    he    will 

110 


FOUR  PAULINE  PRINCIPLES 

gladly  stop  its  public  use.  To  refuse  to 
do  so  would  be  to  put  his  own  pleasure 
or  edification  above  that  of  the  many 
involved. 

3.  Orderliness. — "Let  all  things  be 
done  decently  and  in  order"  (1  Cor. 
14:40).  This  is  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter  with  Paul.  "God  is  not  a 
God  of  confusion,  but  of  peace"  (1  Cor. 
14:33).  Anything  that  makes  a  public 
assembly  seem  like  a  room  full  of  maniacs 
or  anything  that  sounds  like  the  squall- 
ing of  an  infant  department  more  than 
the  orderly  discourse  of  reasonable  men, 
is  not  from  God  and  can  claim  no  divine 
authority.  If  there  is  to  be  any  speaking 
with  tongues,  let  two  or,  at  most,  three 
speak,  and  let  them  take  turns.  They 
must  not  talk  all  at  the  same  time.  That 
is  distracting  and  tumultuous  and  dis- 
graceful. A  Christian  meeting  is  not  to 
be  turned  into  a  Bedlam  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. Only  those  are  to  speak 
aloud  with  tongues  who  can  themselves 

111 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

interpret  or  who  have  an  interpreter  at 
hand.  Otherwise  they  must  keep  still 
(1  Cor.  14:27,  28).  The  irregularities 
of  all  the  later  exhibitions  of  the  speak- 
ing with  tongues  would  have  been  avoided 
if  these  rules  laid  down  by  the  Apostle 
Paul  had  been  observed.  Wherever  Paul- 
ine authority  is  claimed  jor  the  exercise  of 
this  gijt,  let  the  Pauline  discipline  be  main- 
tained. It  would  change  the  character 
of  most  of  the  meetings  in  the  modern 
Tongues  Movement  most  radically. 

4.  Self-Control. — The  position  usu- 
ally taken  by  those  who  speak  with 
tongues  is  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  in  ab- 
solute control  of  their  tongues  and  beings, 
and  therefore  any  interference  with  their 
speech  or  action  is  an  interference  with 
Him.  A  mere  man  might  submit  to  the 
judgment  of  his  brethren,  but  who  are 
these  brethren  that  they  should  propose 
to  regulate  and  discipline  the  Holy 
Ghost?  The  practical  position  of  these 
enthusiasts   is   that   the   more   evidence 

112 


FOUR  PAULINE  PRINCIPLES 

they  give  of  the  loss  of  their  self-control, 
the  more  evidence  there  is  that  they  are 
under  the  control  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  more  they  disclaim  personal  respon- 
sibility, the  more  they  claim  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  responsible.  This  is  di- 
rectly contrary  to  the  dictum  of  Paul. 
He  says,  "The  spirits  of  the  prophets  are 
subject  to  the  prophets"  (1  Cor.  14:  32). 
It  was  a  heathen  conception  that  pos- 
session by  the  Spirit  was  compatible 
only  with  the  abnegation  of  the  reason. 
The  Christian  conception  is  that  pos- 
session by  the  Holy  Spirit  simply 
strengthens  and  enforces  the  natural 
powers. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  spirit  of  power 
and  the  spirit  of  love  and  the  spirit  of  a 
sound  mind  (2  Tim.  1:7).  Too  often 
the  spirit  of  power  has  been  coveted  and 
exercised  with  too  little  or  none  of  the 
spirit  of  love.  The  gift  of  speaking  with 
tongues  is  consistent  with  a  large  degree 
of  selfishness.  Too  often  the  spirit  of 
8  113 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

power  and  of  love  has  been  possessed 
and  exercised  with  too  little  or  none  of 
the  spirit  of  a  sound  mind.  The  Holy 
Spirit  is  manifest  just  as  much  in  a 
sound  mind  as  in  power  and  in  love. 
Insanity  and  spirituality  have  nothing 
in  common;  but  Christianity  and  common 
sense  are  near  allied. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  more  interested  or  more  active 
in  abnormal  experiences  or  our  uncon- 
scious states  than  He  is  in  the  reasonable 
conduct  of  our  ordinary  life.  "The 
operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  must  not 
be  looked  for  in  any  abnormal,  violent, 
or  mysterious  psychical  experiences. 
Such  convulsions  of  the  soul  have,  in- 
deed, in  some  cases,  marked  the  awaken- 
ing into  a  new  life;  like  a  volcanic  up- 
heaval, they  have  brought  to  the  surface 
hidden  strata  of  the  subconscious  life; 
but  generally  it  is  by  the  small  voice, 
not  by  the  earthquake  or  the  fire,  that 
God   speaks   to   us.     And   the   wish   to 

114 


FOUR  PAULINE  PRINCIPLES 

strip  ourselves  of  our  own  personality, 

to  empty  ourselves   that   God   may  fill 

the  void,  is  a  mistake.     It  is  when  we 

are  most  ourselves  that  we  are  nearest 

to  God."^     Tennyson,  in  his  "(Enone," 

has  stated  the  truth  well, 

"Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control, 
These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power." 

The  highest  Christian  experience  is  not 
attained  through  the  abandonment  of 
one's  own  faculties,  the  abnegation  of 
one's  own  personality,  the  surrender  of 
one's  own  self-consciousness.  A  man 
may  be  wholly  sanctified  without  losing 
a  particle  of  his  self-respect,  self-knowl- 
edge, or  self-control.  A  thoroughly  con- 
secrated man  will  use  all  the  good  judg- 
ment and  the  common  sense  he  has  in 
the  discreet  regulation  of  his  life.  He 
will  not  cast  himself  down  from  any 
height  he  may  have  attained  because 
the  devil  has  suggested  that  if  he  fling 
away  his  own  personality  he  will  be  borne 

1  Inge,  "Faith  and  Knowledge,"  pp.  167,  168. 

115 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

up  miraculously  on  angels'  wings.  Any 
temptation  to  let  ourselves  go  and  sink 
into  unco7isciousness  is  not  sanctioned  any- 
where in  the  Word  of  God.  It  is  contrary 
to  the  whole  genius  of  the  Christian  faith, 
God  neither  paralyzes  nor  destroys  the 
human  will  or  the  human  reason  in  any 
case.  He  quickens  them  into  new  energy 
and  gives  them  new  power.  He  does 
not  abolish  man's  understanding  with 
any  of  His  gifts.  He  sanctifies  it  and 
uses  it  to  His  own  glory.  The  Spirit  of 
a  sound  mind  will  never  make  anybody 
talk  or  act  like  a  maniac.  The  Holy 
Spirit  puts  a  premium  upon  sanity  and 
soberness  and  good  judgment  and  com- 
mon sense  and  clear  thinking.  Let  Him 
have  the  right  of  way  and  the  gift  of 
tongues  will  be  proportionately  valued, 
exercised  to  edification,  submissive  to 
discipline,  and  subject  to  self-control 
whenever  and  wherever  it  may  be  mani- 
fested. It  will  be  sane  and  serviceable,  or 
it  will  be  silent  in  the  Churches, 

116 


Chapter  VIII 

CONCLUSION 

On  the  whole,  then,  our  conclusion  must 
be  that  the  gift  of  tongues  is  of  such 
comparative  insignificance  that  no  one 
need  covet  it  in  these  days,  and  that  it 
is  a  gift  belonging  to  the  immature 
rather  than  the  mature  development  of 
the  Church,  and  that  as  an  ecstatic 
experience  it  ought  not  to  be  cultivated 
because  of  the  nervous  disorders  that 
will  inevitably  ensue  in  any  prolonged 
indulgence  in  it,  and  that  whenever  it 
occurs  in  any  religious  meeting,  the 
responsible  leader  of  that  meeting  ought 
to  see  to  it  that  it  is  submissive  to  dis- 
cipline  and   subject  to   self-control. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  when 
physical  prostrations  were  frequent  in 
John  Wesley's  meetings  Charles  Wesley 

117 


CONCLUSION 

preached  upon  one  occasion,  and  quietly 
informed  his  audience  before  he  began 
that  any  one  who  was  stricken  down 
during  the  service  would  be  removed 
from  the  room  just  as  quietly  and  as 
expeditiously  as  possible;  and  after  that 
announcement  no  one  was  stricken.  Usu- 
ally a  few  quiet  words  of  suggestion 
from  the  leader  will  dispose  of  all  such 
phenomena. 

When  the  possessors  of  the  gift  of 
tongues  refuse  to  recognize  any  Church 
authority,  and  are  inclined  to  ignore  the 
injunction  that  all  things  shall  be  done 
decently  and  in  order,  and  are  unwilling 
to  submit  to  the  Pauline  restrictions 
upon  the  use  of  the  gift,  they  brand 
their  gift  at  once  as  un-Christian  and  its 
exercise  as  un-Scriptural;  and  they  should 
be  disciplined  accordingly.  The  gift  of 
tongues  must  be  recognized  as  a  pos- 
sible accompaniment  of  any  ecstatic 
Christian  or  pagan  experience.  It  should 
never  be  allowed  to  become  the  prom- 

118 


CONCLUSION 

inent  feature  of  any  Christian  move- 
ment. It  should  be  discouraged  under 
all  normal  conditions  everywhere.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  it  ought  to  be  encour- 
aged under  any  conditions  anywhere. 
In  the  Church  of  to-day  it  is  less  a  bless- 
ing to  be  desired  than  an  affliction  to  be 
endured.  Let  it  cease  as  soon  as  may  be; 
but  let  love  abide  in  all  our  dealings 
with  it.  *' Whether  there  be  tongues, 
they  shall  cease.  .  .  .  But  now 
abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three; 
and  the  greatest  of  these  is  love." 


119 


Due 


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The  gift  of  tongues. 


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